Resurgence and Reckoning: an alternate Episode IX

[bluntblade]

Chapter 23: Coup​

Gorothad and its myriad orbital defences were laid out in perfect detail before Torqueda, the holograms glowing brightly in the low light of the strategium. Beyond the web of satellites and space stations, the defence fleet held to geostationary orbit, spread out above the planet's gravity well.

The display didn't show it, but Torqueda knew there would be hundreds of civilian craft moving through space, each one tracked by the guns of one Star Destroyer or another. To say nothing of the TIE craft which carried out the endless patrols – though if he chose, he could make those visible as well.

A little chime accompanied the appearance of a bulk freighter some way out from the fleet. It was a little longer than a Resurgence-class Star Destroyer and far more bulky, packed with goods of one sort or another. Out of habit, Torqueda called up a copy of the ship's manifest. One of the defence fleet's ships would send a company aboard to screen the cargo nonetheless, and ensure that everything was in order.

This was all routine, and it wasn't what Torqueda was watching for; that hadn't shown just yet. But he could wait. The Inquisition taught patience, as evidenced by the Enforcers who stood to attention behind him. The next step would have to be done quickly, but there was a different between moving fast and rushing. An Inquisitor, if they lasted long enough, learned to be a coiled spring.

Finally, there was a chime from his comms unit. "Ah, it appears that the show has begun." He leaned forward, gazing keenly at an empty expanse of space close to the planet. Even the Enforcers shifted a little at that as an alert began to ring softly from the console. He permitted himself a smile as civilian craft scattered. It was always good to see that they knew their place.

Hux's fleet streaked into orbit, still showing heavy damage. No matter – there were orbital docks where that could be quickly repaired. What mattered more was the defence fleet moving to intercept.

Torqueda's hand moved straight to the comms switch, opening a channel to the fleet. "Stand down," he said, calmly, waiting for the commodore's inevitable objection before carrying on. "This is the High Inquisitor speaking. You will stand down and permit the General to make planetfall." The commodore backed down.

"And now," he sighed, turning to the blast doors, "the predictable next step."

The gates parted to admit Governor Nolten, who looked equal parts appalled and enraged. He skipped any preamble: "How long have you known?"

"How long have I-"

"Don't – play – coy, Torqueda!" Each word was accompanied by an accusing jab of the finger, which almost moved Torqueda to laughter given the circumstances. "You must have known something about this, so what is Hux trying to do by returning here without giving notice of his intent. Half his fleet should still be dry-docked."

"I don't doubt that Ren would be annoyed at the bad example it might set," Torqueda replied airily. "However, he will be occupied with matters of an altogether more profound gravity."

He was quite pleased with that line. Sadly Nolten was too worked up to take the hint. "Nonetheless, the Supreme Leader should be informed!" the Governor snapped. "Whatever his or Hux's position, this is an irregularity such as the First Order does not tolerate!"

Torqueda watched Nolten move towards the console on the table. That small-mindedness, he reflected, was why Snoke had made Nolten a planetary Governor and not one of his Generals. It was the sort of thinking that led a man to blindly follow Kylo Ren, instead of seeing the alternatives.

To say nothing of how Torqueda had been left to essentially run planetary security all this time. He still couldn't see what was happening around him. Despite all the evidence, he really seemed to believe Torqueda had just been negligent in breaching protocol. Such doltishness was really quite tragic, though at least it afforded Torqueda the chance to have a little fun now.

"I wouldn't trouble yourself, Calyv." He had to suppress a chuckle at how Nolten flinched at the use of his first name, in a way that was visible even stood behind him. He carried on as if he hadn't seen the reaction, his tone urbane. "It's all part of the plan."

"All part-" Nolten wheeled. "You?"

Torqueda, blaster already raised, nodded apologetically. It wouldn't be polite to gloat, after all. "Me."

He put two shots in Nolten's knee. The Governor stayed on his feet for a good few seconds, eyes bulging and face turning crimson. Then he dropped, writhing and screaming on the floor. Impressive fortitude, Torqueda thought. A pity to waste it, but this was what they had been forced into.

He switched the setting to stun, pointed his gun at Nolten's face and fired again. The man went limp. Two Stormtroopers moved in, cuffing the unconscious Governor before dragging him away.

Torqueda turned back to the comms console. "Issue the signal. Our new Supreme Leader has arrived, and he has requested some adjustments to the Gorothad Executive. Proceed as arranged."



The order was carried out at speed. Lockdown was imposed, the traffic which thronged the city grinding to a halt. Communications were frozen, as were all media. The vast propaganda screens broadcast only the order that stopped the planet in its tracks. Unofficial channels were silenced across the First Order's territory.

In orbit too, the clampdown was enacted. The Star Destroyers – both Hux's fleet and the heavy Maxima-class ships of the defence flotilla – moved swiftly into a blockade formation, oriented around the massive shapes of Golan-IV gun-platforms. They had already undergone their own purges, unseen by anyone else.

Quite abruptly, the only people moving in or above the great city were those carrying out Torqueda and Hux's orders. Both Enforcers and Stormtroopers were on the prowl.

They moved quickly and purposefully, not giving anyone a second to question or even think, if they could help it. Where they went on foot, people stepped out of their path and did their best to hide. Those who were foolish or unlucky enough to bar their passage were clubbed roughly out of the way or, if they were judged expendable, simply shot. Traffic parted hurriedly for their transports.

No one was told where they were going, no one was told to expect them. But across Gorothad, its orbital facilities and the other Throne Worlds, people were suddenly hearing the knock at the door.



"Preposterous!" spluttered Minister Wolval to the enforcement troopers stood at the door to the Chambers of Commerce. "Our personnel are vetted and audited biannually. There are no traitors within my ministry, and I will make my displeasure clear to your masters in no uncertain terms."

His underlings had been doing their best to shoo away the intruders. Not strictly intruders of course; the Inquisition's word was that of the law. But the Enforcers had refused to move as higher and higher-ranked officials were sent to reason with them. Surely they had better things to do? Weren't there millions of larcenous wretches down in the lower levels who needed keeping in line, instead of the First Order's own diligent servants?

Apparently not. So finally Wolval had been forced to move from his office and come down here himself. The Minister of Commerce, contending with bloody Enforcers.

The sergeant in front of him, on the other side of the glass doors, hadn't changed his stolid demeanour through thirty-two minutes of standoff. "The High Inquisitor has dispatched us here to apprehend a threat to First Order security. You will permit us to enter." The other nine troopers were just as still.

Wolval swallowed his irritation and pressed on. Anything to get them out of here. "If we indeed had traitors within our ranks here, we would be the first to bring them to your attention."

"Then show us. Let us in so that we can acquire our target, and we will leave you to your business." The sergeant paused. "Or we can keep standing here until a full division of Stormtroopers is deployed, this door broken down, the Chambers of Commerce scoured from bottom to top and you are hauled in for the obstruction of Inquisitorial business."

Wolval inhaled angrily through his nose, staring into the blank eye-lenses. "Fine." He signalled to the guard by the security console.

The doors swung open.

"This had better be quick."

And it was very quick indeed. The sergeant took one step forward and smashed the butt of his rifle into Wolvan's stomach. The Minister of Commerce folded, wheezing. Two troopers grabbed him by the arms and bundled him toward their transport. Four of their comrades escorted them, while the other three remained at their gates with the sergeant.

The officer glanced at the bewildered officials and security personnel before dismissing them. "Wolval's deputy is Minister now. Return to your work." Without a backwards look, he marched back to the transport.



Not every target was worth the trouble of arresting, of course. There were plenty of functionaries who were best done away with and replaced as quickly as possible.

Torqueda's many analysts and investigators had been working flat-out to identify potentially unreliable elements. Not necessarily disloyal, but those who might not be able to reconcile their fealty to the previous Supreme Leader with the allegiance they owed the new one.

In a regime like the First Order, where future soldiers were conscripted by the million and discarded in their thousands over the course of training, it was considered better to remove than recondition in such cases.

The Palace of Discipline, the watch-fortresses and Stormtrooper garrisons hosted brief but vicious flurries of violence. Soldiers and lawkeepers were abruptly gunned down by their comrades, the bodies dragged off and stunned menials left to clear up the resulting mess.

And by no means was Gorothad the only world where such actions were being undertaken. Across the Throne Worlds, Hux's faction were on the move, killing swiftly and dispassionately both on the surface and in orbit.

Above Vorsk, one patrol frigate's captain began to feel a certain suspicion as he watched the orders come in, and more strongly as an Enforcer gunship, launched from a newly arrived Star Destroyer, approached his ship and transmitted clearance codes. They carried General Parnadee's own authorisation to inspect the ship.

The captain's face showed no visible emotion. Calmly, he notified the boarders that he needed to attend to something in his quarters but would be with them imminently.

The Enforcers came straight to the captain's quarters. When they cut through the door, they found him stood in front of his personal comms signal, partway through dictating an outbound message. Their immediate response was to open fire, killing the captain and wrecking the console.

They assumed that would be the end of it.



Two statements were issued from the Palace in quick succession, echoing through the fearful hush. The first proclaimed the Supreme Leader dead, shedding no light on the circumstances of his death but assuring the populace that stability would be maintained.

The second was with regard to the arrests and judicial murders being carried out. The victims were declared conspirators and abettors to regicide. Exactly which ruler's death they were accused of a part in went unspecified as well.

The citizens of Gorothad weren't entirely new to these upheavals. After all, it was intrigue and murder which had brought Snoke to the throne, decades before, and the old Supreme Leader had no qualms about enforcing his rule by those means. There had always been dissidents and schemers to be periodically rooted out.

So the world held its breath, waiting to see what would come next.



"This is an enormously unnecessary pain in the arse," Girse Brun pronounced. The generously proportioned magnate hauled himself out of the theatre, fuming as he made his way back into the lobby. His wife, valet and aides tailed behind him. "Supreme Leader dead, all commissions frozen! It will take days just to calm the board down, never mind adjusting to whoever's taking charge now."

Everything about this was inconvenient, right down to the message arriving in the middle of the opera. Best seats in the best house on Gorothad, and he had been called away from the performance.

This was especially irksome when his shipyard on Kovant had just finished the construction of a full squadron of Star Destroyers. Now it would be weeks until he had final payment for them, to say nothing of the finished ships occupying the docks and delaying further work. There would be a rise in the price when the new man in charge came to collect, oh yes there would. Girse Brun didn't like to wait on First Order bureaucracy, and he liked to share his displeasure when his business was interfered with.

"If this was Hux's doing," he grumbled, "then the pompous bloody whey-faced twerp has cost me a month's profits." Not to mention wasting tickets which cost more credits than most Gorothad citizens made in a year. The opera hadn't even been that good, but it was the principle of the thing. "I will demand accommodations in return for my silence if that is the case."

There were more than a few First Order apparatchiks emerging from the auditorium, apparently responding to the same message which had interrupted Brun. It just meant more crowding, more irritation.

Brun warmed to his theme. "We'd never have had this problem when Snoke was in charge, a Supreme Leader didn't just go and get himself killed back then."

"Snoke did get himself killed," his wife pointed out in a disinterested way, cradling her pet Tooka.

"Your comments are no less unhelpful than the circumstances," Brun grumbled. "And at least Snoke waited a good long time before-"

Then the Enforcers who'd come up behind him jabbed their tasers into his back. Brun only managed a strangled yelp before he went limp. By then the Enforcers had taken hold of him, not missing a beat despite the magnate's not inconsiderable weight. They left his wife and the help standing shellshocked in the lobby.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 24: Making Friends​

Nyzar sat back, arms folded. "Not keen on this, Captain."

Kaydel paused, her arms full of ration packs as she watched the show. Rey's hands were on her hips, her eyebrow comically arched as the slender young woman stared down the burly Zabrak. "Orders are orders, Nyzar. We're eating with the escapees."

That was an important distinction they'd decided to make: escapees, not deserters.

Tannell chuckled as he picked up a couple of water canteens and headed down the ramp, passing a bemused Ki'rii.

Rey and Kaydel had decided that they ought to make themselves properly visible to the Vehement's crew. If they were lucky, they might even strike up a conversation or two, and it was lunchtime in any case. So after they'd radioed the fleet, Rey had declared that they would eat outside, in view of the locals.

"This is so very you, Nyzar," LM put in. "You go into battle without a squeak of complaint for two years, and now we're just asked to have lunch with strangers…"

"All right," Nyzar conceded, running his fingers around the short horns which crowned his scar-ridged head. He looked at Kaydel. "You're sure they're no threat? Just jittery kids, like the Captain says?"

"They're about our age." Rey's gesture took in herself, Kaydel and Ki'rii.

The two ex-gladiators exchanged a look. "Kids," LM grated sagely. Chewbacca rumbled disapprovingly. Rey just rolled her eyes.

"Look, I know you're about to say that could still be dangerous, but as long as we don't visibly have fingers on triggers, they won't."

"You two are very lucky in your commanding officers," Kaydel said. Heck, even Poe would probably have given them a telling off had he been here. The Resistance weren't authoritarian types by any means, but they understood the value of proper discipline.

Especially after Crait, though on that occasion, the guilty parties had been left to work through it themselves. Which in Kaydel's case had meant weeks of stewing in her own head, until Rey came to her and offered to help… The memory of that was enough to put a smile back on her face.

Rey tapped her foot. "And the commanding officer says, get your backsides out there. You too, Lieutenant," she winked at Kaydel.

"On it," she replied.

The other Scrappers were already sat down and eating down by the ramp – and holding tentative conversations with some of the former troopers and crew members, Kaydel noted. That would make their job here a little easier, hopefully.

Some of it was probably down to the composition of the group. Stormtroopers, according to Finn, didn't see many people from other species either during their training or afterwards. They certainly didn't get to interact with them peacefully.

Olesin wasn't having any of it, parking himself in the shade and wearing an expression as stony as Kaydel had ever seen on him. By unspoken agreement, the solitary Kaleesh was left to it. He'd fight tenaciously for his comrades in battle, but he was rarely anything but a grouch outside it. Fortunately, the droids and Gial were ably distracting the spectators.

Kaydel took a seat on one of the containers, watching Tannell show off his vibrosword to one of the troopers. A shadow passed over her briefly, and she looked up to see Rey.

"Good call, Rey. Looks like we're popular."

Rey's head bobbed, a little smile playing across her face as she reached for a ration pack and opened it. "BB-8 might actually feel like he's had enough attention for once, today."

Kaydel snorted. "Fat chance. People are listening to Threepio, that's our one miracle for the day used up."

One particularly youthful crew member glanced at them nervously, halfway to crouching down and petting Gial. Rey waved at her to carry on, smiling. "We've never known him to bite."

"Maybe we should head to Ach-To after this," Kaydel said. "Round up a whole bunch of Porgs – I mean, take a load of our new gunships and load 'em right up. Then we'll go all over the Galaxy and pose with them. Our armies will dwarf the First Order within a week!"

Rey dissolved into giggles, planting a hand on Kaydel's thigh as she bent double. "That's a wicked, wicked idea, Kaydel. Kidnapping Porgs!"

To see Rey let her composure drop gave Kaydel a little rush, but she kept her tone resolutely deadpan. "You did it to Gial."

"He was a stowaway and you know it." But her tone was playful, and the hand on Kaydel's thigh squeezed gently. Kaydel drew a little breath, and felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

She leaned over and kissed Rey. "Don't worry, Jedi. Your diabolical secret's safe with me." She reached for a pack of crisped vegetables and offered them. "Seconds?"

Rey grinned. "I'll take a few. Remember, we've gotta leave some for the others."



JN and Arron had led Finn, Rose and Poe up one of the higher towers, one of the few which didn't seem to be a lookout post. Apparently the division's de facto leaders had taken it for a communal space, reminding Finn of his and Poe's favoured perch at the Agnoa base.

They went through introductions and desultory small talk, but before too long, Finn decided they were ready to have the conversation he'd come here for.

"So." He sat back. "Our intel says you were meant to quell a rebellion on Ublest, but disappeared on the way there. What happened?"

The other officers looked to JN, who stared cautiously back at Finn. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because, leaving aside what it means to the Resistance… you're the only other Stormtroopers I've ever known to step away from the First Order. I'm curious to know how it happened, and how it ended with you here."

The young woman seemed to shrink a little, gazing into the fire. "We were fresh out of the academy, and just before we got out the rumours reached us. Stories about a Stormtrooper who renounced the First Order and escaped."

"It wasn't just the Stormtroopers," Arron added. He caught Finn's eye and explained, "I didn't enlist willingly. A lot of us were pushed into the Academy. It might sound weird, but your story was inspiring to us as well."

JN nodded, but a haunted look had crept onto her face. "So we mutinied."

Finn shifted uneasily in his seat, remembering how Phasma had gunned down those Stormtroopers on the Supremacy when they hesitated. "Why do I get the feeling that didn't end well?"

"Because it didn't. The captain ordered a purge immediately. There were still a good thousand veterans aboard and we couldn't sway them." She shuddered. "We tore into other. It was a miracle that they didn't manage to blow the reactor, but stars' end, we bled for it, and we made them bleed too." Her expression was strained, tears welling up in her eyes. "I put down comrades, people in my own colours. Parts of the same system I was meant to belong to."

"And then?" Finn pressed her.

"I keeled over." She shook her head, the ghost of a laugh hissing between her teeth. "All of us did, literally. We fought for three hours on that ship before we'd killed everyone trying to kill us. Made a jump to the middle of nowhere and we all just… collapsed." She slumped forward a little. "It was easier to fall down that get up the next day. The weight of it just fell on us – what we'd done, how alone we were."

Part of him wanted to argue against that. You weren't alone. You could've come to us. Those thoughts came easily to Finn, but he knew they weren't the full truth. Because if you said that, you failed to understand that quitting the legions didn't just mean stepping out of a cage. It meant leaving the very framework of your life.

He'd been there. Before he'd stepped outside it properly – before he'd met Poe, Rey and especially Rose – his conception of the Galaxy beyond the legions had been stunted. He'd had a vague idea of how civilians lived, but he hadn't understood them. They were this nebulous mass outside the regimented order of a Stormtrooper's life.

And a Stormtrooper didn't stop believing the propaganda they were brought up on just because they didn't believe in the First Order any more. If anything, the overwhelming size of the regime and its armies loomed even larger once you were out of it. He remembered the punishment beatings which were a case in point – the offender would be set against a little phalanx of fellow cadets. An individual against the unified, weak and easily battered down.

And the Vehement's crew would had seen more than he had before deserting. The Hosnian Atrocity, the subjugation of Republic worlds and the bloody reprisals meted out to any who held out. To expect them to think the Resistance could keep them safe would be a bad joke.

So he let her carry on, uninterrupted. "We patched up the damage, gave the dead to the void… and ran."

"And since then, you've been here?"

"After twenty-six days of wandering, yes. We came across an old wreck-" the spy's recordings had mentioned that, Finn remembered "-dug around in it, got some obscure navigation charts and found our way here."

"Well, I like what you've done with the place." He looked again at the quiet orderliness of the settlement. There was a slightly brittle edge to it. For all that it seemed peaceful, there was still that constant tension there. "Is it always this quiet? I haven't even heard anyone argue down here."

She gave a small shrug, looking out at the jungle beyond the walls. "We've got to be. All we've got is each other."

"You could have a lot more than that." That brought her eyes back to him. He saw wariness there, but there was something else behind it. Hope perhaps – a hope she didn't quite dare to believe in yet. Glancing around, he saw the same thing in the others' eyes.

He also shot Poe and Rose a look. They both smiled and Poe gave a little shake of the head, an implicit you've got this.

"I'm not gonna lie, it means trading the quietly fearful life for putting yourself straight in the line of fire, but if you don't take this risk, then you may never get to breathe free."

"We're free here." She said it vehemently, but she could clearly tell that the words came off a little hollow, despite how much she tried to make herself believe it. "And if the First Order are hunting here, we'll up sticks. The Galaxy's a big place."

Finn shook his head, letting his sadness show. "What you've got here isn't real freedom. And I get that it feels safe to a point. I nearly chose this life myself, taking a ship to way out and disappearing on a nowhere world." He leaned forward, looking her straight in the eye. "But I see the way your people look up every time a cloud crosses the sky or there's a loud noise way off. Every man and woman in this city is waiting for the day when the First Order finally appears over your world and you have to either fight or flee."

"Well, what's the alternative?" Her voice cracked a little, though she did her best to make it into a laugh. "Take down the regime that controls the Galaxy?"

He resisted the urge to remind her that the First Order was already hunting them. After all, he wanted them to want to take the Resistance's side.

"It sounded crazy to me too," he said, injecting some warmth into his voice. "But then I saw how the First Order treats the rest of the Galaxy, not just us. And I learned how good it felt to give them one in the eye. You heard about Phasma?"

She eyed him as though she was afraid of saying something foolish. "There were… rumours about Phasma."

"Including how she dropped the shields on the Starkiller, and threw her own men under the tank when she got called on it?" He hadn't realised how matter-of-factly he talked about that these days until he saw the look on her face. He almost laughed, but then he got a hold of himself and carried on, riding the wave of passion he'd raised up inside himself. "Because that's the weakness the First Order has been hiding all this time. They tell us and everyone else that we're weak, to make themselves seem unstoppable."

He saw her begin to object and rushed on.

"I'm not saying that it's easy to fight them, far from it. But I know how it feels when you win out, against the odds. Because it's not just about destroying the thing you hate. It's about finding things you never even dreamed of before, things and people that you come to love. That's when you understand what it means to really be free, and after that first taste you just want more, for yourself and for others. It's when you stop asking what chance you have, and start asking what choice do we have but to resist their evil with everything we've got?"

He stopped, catching his breath. She was watching him in silence. They all were.

"You have a chance to show the Galaxy that the First Order isn't as tough as they want everyone to think. And you've already thrown off the colours. Close enough to being free that you might as well go the distance, right? On which note…" he smiled. "My friend Poe says you should never turn a person into a number. So, JN… if it's alright with you, I'm gonna call you Jannah from now on."

"Jannah..." she sat back, almost trying it on. "Jan-nah. Yeah," she said, a smile finally breaking out on her face. "I like that."

"Glad to hear it." He leaned forward, holding out his hand a little. "I need you to gather your people together tomorrow morning. Whatever space is big enough to fit all of you. For now though, I need some sleep."

He'd barely turned the corner when Rose turned and thudded into him, hugging him tightly.

"Hey, hey!" he laughed, returning the embrace. "Is this the bit where you say you're proud of me?"

"So proud." Her voice was a little muffled by his shirt.

"Well, you know." He glanced up at the deep blue sky, then looked at her. "I had some very good influences."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 25: Rhetoric​

The seizures and killings on Gorothad had run through the night and much of the day. Thousands were taken by the Stormtroopers and Enforcers as Hux tightened his grip. Some of them had been identified weeks and even months before. Others had just recently condemned themselves, whether by expressing a doubt that Kylo Ren was dead or suggesting that, all things considered, it was rather convenient for Hux to have just now returned to Gorothad when the throne was vacant.

The same pattern of events had run across the Throne Worlds, and before long the purge would be carried right across the First Order's domain. For now, the planets turned in silence, their people waiting tremulously to hear what the new tyrant's intentions were. They feared him, but there was little of no respect in the eyes which turned to holo-reels and scanned the vast propaganda screens.

After all, it was times like this that the First Order showed most clearly its contempt for the ordinary people. They were beneath its notice, unless they got in the way of the internal bloodletting. In which case they became a hindrance and were quickly removed. A few more thousand dead, here and there. A small enough sum to the First Order.

When it was all over, Hux stepped out of the Palace and surveyed his new domain. Truly, Ren, it is a pity that you didn't live to see this.

Clouds gathered darkly above the Palace. The pressure was high, suggesting a storm soon to break. Hux welcomed it. A cleansing downpour to scour away the lingering taint of Kylo Ren.

Great banners had been unfurled across the front of the Palace, the black icon of the First Order on stark white. Hux's forces were arrayed on the plaza in unmoving ranks, with nervous civilian staff stood further back. Elsewhere were the camera crews who would broadcast his words to the Galaxy, but dead ahead that was a scaffold, and that drew Hux's eye. There, ten figures in dishevelled uniforms stood, Executioner troopers standing over them.

The scaffold included a podium, and Hux made his way to it. Stolan, Torqueda and other officers flanked him as he stepped up. It was immaculately arranged, and the cameras would capture it with just as much precision. That was the way of First Order propaganda, nothing out of place. The merciless perfection of the regime, Hux's regime, was captured in every image.

One of the crouching men – Governor Nolten – turned his head briefly to glare at Hux and got a sharp jab in the ribs for his trouble. Hux smiled thinly, before he turned to the cameras.

"Citizens of the First Order!" He paused as his amplified voice echoed back at him, savouring the knowledge that the entire system was hanging on his words. Soon enough, the whole Galaxy would heed them.

On the way here, he'd considered beginning softly and rejected the idea. Let them be shocked. Let them understand the magnitude of events. "As you have heard, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is dead. Now hear this – he was killed on Omunak, on my orders, for the crime which we all know he committed – the murder of his revered predecessor Snoke."

Two years he'd waited to utter those words, and he relished them. Gorothad, he fancied, had never been so silent.

"This is not an act of rebellion. By contrast, it is an entirely necessary purge. Too long have the First Order's ideals been perverted by instability at its very apex, by a regicide on the throne. All of us, from the lowest menial to the generals and governors by whose word the Galaxy is kept under control, were complicit, for we dared not speak out."

Let that be the blade set to hang over his underlings from now on. "Before you are men who served Ren's aberrant rule and stood in the way of his removal. Now behold the awful price of their mistakes." For complicity in Ren's many offences against the dignity of the First Order, no sentence could be too severe. Anyone who doubted Hux's fitness to rule would have to reckon with that implicit threat.

"Where could this have led," he demanded, "but to total collapse unless stable, rational authority was reimposed?" He gave the question a few seconds to bed down in the minds of those listening. "For that reason, I have accepted the burden of rulership to ensure that true order is maintained in the Galaxy. I shall be your Supreme Leader." Stormtrooper fists punched upwards, a forest of white-armoured limbs. The civilians behind them raised their hands too, with rather more hesitance.

Hux noted that. Well, if they feared him then that was all to the good. "And as my first official act, I sentence these wretches, who have spat on the ideals of the First Order, to death! Let them serve as an example to all." With those words ringing across the plaza, the prisoners were hauled to the blocks. The Executioners stepped forward, their electro-axes snapping into life.

Hux tilted his head back. Beyond those leaden clouds, his fleet was locking into formation, soon to move out and quell whatever enemies remained. He spread his arms wide, voice rising to a spittle-flecked snarl. "Rejoice, for today the promise of the First Order is honoured. Today, our commitment to proper governance is reaffirmed. Today, we are again united in our purpose to deliver the Galaxy from the false idols of democracy and freedom! Forth our legions will march to a thousand new conquests! Eternal, immutable victory!"

And on that last syllable, the axes swept down, a dozen simultaneous snaps and thumps serving to hammer home Hux's speech. He breathed in slowly, relishing the stillness in the air. Gorothad itself – and beyond, the entire First Order – waited on his command.

After all this time and all his trials, the mantle of supremacy had come to him. And whatever he had said about burdens and solemnity, Hux intended to enjoy that power a very deal.

All it would take now was the confirmation of Ren's death.



Finn too was facing an audience, though with far less relish than Hux. They were out of the midday sun, but even in the shade, the heat was unhelpfully intense. "Man, that's a whole heap of people."

Poe nudged him. "You asked for all the ex-troopers, you got 'em."

"And a lot more besides." It appeared that all the escapees had gathered in the square, trooper and crewman alike. Next to the dais that stood at one end, Finn couldn't quite see to the back of the crowd.

But there could be no backing out. After hearing Jannah's story, he hadn't been able to shake the sense that in some way, he owed them. Or rather, that he could show them the way to something better than scratching a living here. Not to mention the debt they owed to everyone who'd given their lives to get them to here.

Rey stepped up next to him. "Feeling ready?"

"I think so."

"You are." She had the same smile she'd worn after they'd escaped Jakku, the day they first met. "The Force is with you, Finn." Then the others stepped back, leaving him alone by the stand.

He closed his eyes, repeating the old manta. The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force. He felt himself become centred and the turbulence inside him did away. And before he could think any further, his legs were carrying him up onto the dais.

An expectant hush gripped the crowd. Jannah stood before him, but as Finn approached, she inclined her head and backed away.

They stared up at him with a mixture of trepidation, curiosity and something else – a hope that they didn't quite dare to acknowledge. But he could feel it, through the Force. Emboldened, he drew a breath and spoke.

"I know you," he began, running his gaze over the crowd. "I've been you. I know what it means to stop being a Stormtrooper. And how hard it is to become anything else, because we've never once been allowed to be anything else."

His eyes roved over them, looking for anyone who might challenge that, but they just stared back. "We were raised without anything to call our own, meant to fight when we had nothing to fight for. And then you realise that there's a choice and you decide you're not going to kill for the First Order, but once you're through that fight you find yourself unmoored." Jannah had said that quite clearly.

"That was me, stumbling through, just trying to get away. But then I met people who wouldn't call a person by a number, who'd fight for someone who they'd never met before." He hardened his tone, drew himself up. "The only reason we feel lost is that no one ever taught us what freedom really means."

Now the next step, the one he'd discussed with Rose and Poe. Because he'd realised that there was one lingering influence from the First Order which the escapeers hadn't shaken off yet. The lack of a true name for any Stormtrooper, and the barrier it created between them and anyone else. He'd seen the looks of surprise on the faces of Arron and others when he gave Jannah her name. It had never crossed their minds to do that. Maybe, after so long serving their old masters, they didn't even imagine it was possible to do away with it.

Well, no more. "And sometimes it just takes someone to give you a way to value it. Even as little as a name, so." He stepped down from the dais, his eyes finding a young man. He stretched out a hand. "Hey pal. What did they call you?"

"JC-3761."

"That's not a name." Finn put an arm round the youth's shoulders and wheeled him round to face the rest. Somewhere behind him, LM-976 turned to Nyzar and shrugged. "So you know what, people? From now on, this man here is Jaicyn."

"Jaicyn." Just like Jannah, the youth repeated the name, trying it on.

Emboldened, Finn turned to his friends, seeing the broad smile on Poe's face, and beckoned them forward. "We're gonna work through you guys. Former ratings here, anyone who isn't called by a number, join us. No one leaves here with a Stormtrooper tag."

A strange euphoria built among the former Stormtroopers as names were improvised and handed out. Poe got into it immediately. Rey and the others were more hesitant, but they soon hit their stride.

And the former troopers too, the ones who'd just been gifted names of their own, were taking a hand. Giving out names they'd heard in passing, improvised or maybe even half-remembered from childhood. The last barrier between them and the enlisted personnel was crumbling, one more reminder of their old masters falling away.

Finally, Finn took to the stand again and raised a hand to quiet the babble. "My friends, I don't want to have to ask this of you, but what you have now, the First Order will take away. Not just from you, but from families across the Galaxy. So many of them will know the same pain as yours."

He drew a breath, letting the words sink in. "I won't order you to fight, but if you want to live free, the tyrants have to fall. They wanted you to subjugate the Galaxy in their name. Choose to be the ones to liberate it."

Jaicyn and Jannah shouted their assent, immediately joined by the others. Finn actually rocked back a little on his heels, a huge grin spreading over his face. He looked down at Rey and Rose, both of them smiling proudly back at him.

For a moment, he just revelled in it. Then he gathered himself, cupped his hands to his mouth, and called for quiet. The hubbub died away. "Then we've gotta get to work. Everything you need has to be on that Destroyer this time tomorrow. Are you ready?"

This time, the cheer shook the city.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 26: Ren's Dark Arts​

The Subjugator and its lessers held formation under the light of a bloated red star, on the edge of the Tion Sector. The way that the ruby light played across the grey hulls of his ships was pleasing to Ren. Somehow it seemed like a favourable omen, though he was too hardened to imagine it was any such thing.

The twenty ships that remained to him, after leaving the others to occupy his new conquests, were all he would put his faith in here. He didn't trust omens or prophecies any more. Not after his vision of Rey turning to the Dark had been proved false.

She occupied his thoughts more and more, as their confrontation drew near. His words to Yimur a few days ago had been firm, but they had merely disguised his uncertainty. Breaking her and binding her to the Ren and killing her were two very different propositions, even if he had spoken of them in the same breath. Which was it to be? In truth, he hadn't yet decided.

When I face her again, I will know, he told himself. Circumstances may also dictate the outcome.

Certainly Rey had earned either fate when she refused him. Had she only accepted, there would be no Resistance today. He'd have had the Galaxy under his boot, and he'd have had her.

Anger flared in his chest. You had your chance, Rey, and forfeited any right to choose again.

Footsteps behind him. The prim, measured movements of Pryde.

Ren turned to regard him. "Allegiant General." Beside him, Yimur briefly inclined his head. That was the closest any of the Knights got to bowing to anyone except their master.

"Supreme Leader, the fleet is ready to begin our sweep of the sector. The analysts have begun to identify potential boltholes for the deserters."

"Unnecessary," Ren said. "I have a means to locate them. Just prepare for the jump to hyperspace, and have the legions ready for immediate deployment."

Pryde inclined his head. "I will defer to your arts, Supreme Leader."

If only, Ren thought, all his officers had such faith. The doubters kept their faces blank, but Ren could feel the mix of scepticism and fear which hung over them. That new lieutenant, whose freshly stitched cuts were still an angry red, briefly drew his gaze again. The youth's eyes flicked briefly to his and then back to his console.

No fondness for him there, but Ren didn't care to make an issue of it. He had the obedience of his subordinates, and had no need of their admiration. Soon they'd have no reason to doubt his abilities.

Ren strode to the exit with Yimur at his side. The other Knights detached themselves from the shadows and joined them.



Back to his chambers, where the darkness seemed to hang more heavily than it did anywhere else on the ship. The black marble floor was graven with astrological patterns, a web of lines and spheres that glinted, ominously. The light that they caught was thrown back colder.

Those who knew where to look would discern a certain pattern, and perceive its resonance. The Knights recognised it. They had made some use of it before, directed by Ren. All of them had learned a great deal during their pilgrimage.

Ren paused for a moment, before Yimur broke the silence. "Is it time, Master?"

"Yes." The Knights took up their positions, each moving to a ring carved on the floor. Two lay empty, but the six living Knights should suffice for this. Yimur drew his sword and sank to his knees, laying the weapon on the floor in front of him. The others followed. Ren stepped away, knowing that Verix would be the last.

Instead his eyes were on a stone plinth, and the dagger he had brought from Gorothad. He crossed the room, glancing at the other plinth where Vader's mask sat, and stretched out his hand for the knife - only for his uncle's voice to intrude again.

"Your arts." Looking up, Ren found Luke's ghost emerging from the wall opposite. None of the Knights paid him any heed, as Ren had instructed them. Luke continued, casting a disdainful look over them. "You know how to disappoint your old teacher, Ben. Playing at blood magic with your sordid little coven."

Amusement tugged at Ren's mouth. "So it's not angry, just disappointed today, Master?" He picked up the knife, feeling the baleful energies caged in the metal. It thirsted. He didn't spare Luke a glance. "I shouldn't be surprised. You never cared for anything that actually got a job done."

Behind him, the Knights began to chant, a droning cadence in an ancient, alien tongue. The air seemed to thin, the heat draining from the room, and Ren tasted ash on his tongue. The shadows pulsed in time to the chant, running alongside the geometric inscriptions.

Luke bared his teeth in a disgusted grimace. "The Force around all of you is curdled. Your presence is a stain on it."

Where Ren's footsteps had echoed loudly before, now the dropping pressure in the chamber seemed to steal the sound as he moved to its centre, where the patterns converged. "You really shouldn't speak of your old pupils like that." His voice, he found, still carried clearly.

Luke shook his head. He kept back, at the edge of the chamber. "It shames me to see what you've all become, what you've done to them. If Rey had seen them before, she'd never have hesitated to refuse you."

Ren answered him with an expression halfway between a smirk and a snarl. "The girl won't be a concern for much longer – she's given us the means to trace her." Gwaelyn's last words echoed in his head. "The Ren marks her, and as it is mine to command, it will give me my prey." He pulled off a glove. The dagger seemed to glint more brightly, its vicious thirst so close to being sated.

He felt a chill in his blood, as if his body sensed the ravenous blade and recoiled from it reflexively. Weakness. He cast it out; it had no place in him.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, reaching out with the Force. The Dark Side coiled around him, a current ready for him to follow it. This was the mastery he had earned.

"You really do think it obeys you?" Luke interjected. "You really think that, what, throwing a few more bodies on the pile will fix things for you?"

Ren turned back to Luke. "I wonder what you'll find to mock, old man," he said, putting the knife to his bare palm, "when I butcher your last pupil." He cut.



The afternoon had been a jubilant bustle. Resistance personnel had come down from orbit and set about packing up and carting off supplies, working alongside the escapees. They halted after sunset, however, leaving the defence turrets among the last things to be packed up. Just a few hours in the morning, and they should be ready to depart with their new friends.

Rey and Kaydel, like most of the people on the surface, had set up for the night in a vacant apartment in the city. With more loading to do the next day, it made sense for them to stay put and Jannah had turned up a spare couple of bedrolls.

"You know," Kaydel said, undoing the braid in her hair. "When this is all done, and we start this adventure of ours, I think we ought to find somewhere nice and cultured." She tapped her knuckles against the stone wall. "A city that's actually intact, where we can find something good to eat and drink."

"Kaydel, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves," Rey cautioned as she rifled through her pack for nightclothes.

"C'mon, can't a girl dream a little?" Kaydel approached her, putting her arms around Rey's neck. "Especially when we've nearly completed our mission and got ourselves a whole bunch of new friends. Plus," she added, as she pulled Rey close and kissed her gently, "a little bit of hope to go with them. Poe's right – we might look back on Finn's speech as the moment when the tide started turning."

Rey finally mustered a smile of her own and returned the kiss, stroking Kaydel's cheek and grinning as her girlfriend's – and she still felt a little rush at that thought – fingers went spidering down her spine. But as Kaydel gently, teasingly bit her lower lip, a familiar and unwelcome chill stole up on her. Suddenly the touch seemed distant. And someone else, who had not come in, was in the cabin with them.

She pulled away a little, seeing the confusion in Kaydel's eyes as she looked past her. And there he was, suddenly as close as he'd seemed on Ach-To.

"Hello Rey." He was unarmoured this time, with only one glove on. The corpse-pale skin was even more apparent now, in the low light.

Rey swallowed. "Ben," she said, as calmly as she could.

"I see my sister left a mark." He drew close, and she saw the blood trickling through the fingers of his bare hand. "Which is only right. The Ren is old and deep, and my Knights don't fall easily." His eyes bored into hers. "You're still raw, Rey."

"Murderer!" Kaydel hissed. The sound came to Rey as if she was underwater, but Ren seemed to hear it all the same.

His eyes alighted on her, and his face twitched in the merest hint of a smile. "So this is the girl. She seems nice." He took a step forward. "Is she good to you?" Rey tried to decide if it was scorn or envy in his tone.

Instinctively, she pulled Kaydel behind her, forcing some steel into her voice. "Well, she's never put a blade to my throat."

Amusement flickered in the yellow eyes. "Have you tried it?"

"How are you doing this?" Rey demanded, ignoring the goad. Just looking at his wounded hand brought a painful throb to her eyes, and told her that something about this meeting was different to the others.

"The Ren. The link which binds me to my Knights. You killing Gwaelyn brought you into it, just a little. Enough for me to briefly open up our old bond." That was still more worrying, when she realised the power it must take to do this.

Rey felt her shoulders hunch and her hands balling into fists, but she couldn't shake her unease at how her staff was sat outside the door. Keep him talking. Wait it out. "And you just wanted to talk?"

He was within reach of her now. "I like to know my quarry." Too late, she saw his eyes move to Kaydel.

Ren pounced. He grabbed Rey's shoulder and hurled her aside before lunging at Kaydel, who went tottering back on her heels.

Rey thudded hard into the wall. Seeing stars, she rolled over just in time to see him stretch out his hand. Kaydel's limbs went rigid and she was plucked into the air, hauled off her feet with the Force. Ren's teeth were bared, a hideous rictus which Rey recognised immediately. It was the same one Snoke had worn on the Supremacy. Kaydel's face was a mask of uncomprehending terror. Then his hand clamped over her forehead.

In a heartbeat, her expression went from dread to excruciation. Kaydel's back arched and she shrieked, the sound seeming to rip its way out of her lungs.

"Kaydel!" Rey leapt. Ren turned fractionally toward her, and her knuckles hammered into his face. Blood exploded from his nose. He fell back and suddenly out of sight.

Rey was still for a moment, chest heaving as she stared at the place where Ren had just been. Then the sound of Kaydel's sobbing broke through to her.

"Kaydel!" She rushed to her partner and fell to her knees, cradling her. Kaydel was shaking violently, her face awash with tears.

"Talk to me," Rey whispered, putting her arms around her. "I'm here with you. It's going to be alright, I'm not letting him hurt you again."

There was only more sobbing. Kaydel buried her face in Rey's chest, just as the door opened. Finn stood on the threshold with a concerned look on his face and his lightsaber in hand, Chewbacca and Rose behind him. Rey held up her free hand.

"Ren?" Finn asked.

She nodded. "He was here, he attacked Kaydel."

"How?"

"The old link," she replied. "It's over though, I kicked him back." She put both arms about Kaydel and rocked her gently. "Gave him a good bloody nose, eh? He's not going to try that again."

Kaydel managed a muffled little laugh, but then she looked up at Rey and her face fell a little. "You're bleeding again."

Rey felt her cheek and her fingertips came away red. The cut must have reopened when she hit the wall. "Doesn't matter," she replied. "Doesn't matter. You're safe."

BB-8 nudged past Finn and trundled over to the two women, cooing. Kaydel leaned over, managing a smile as the little droid bumped up against her chin. "All the better for seeing you, BB-8." But then, horrified realisation set in on her face. "Rey," she whispered. "He was… he was in my head…"

"What?" Finn asked.

But Rey already knew, and shards of ice stabbed at her heart. "He's seen where we are. They're coming."



Kylo Ren picked himself up from the cold stone floor, contorting his face and wincing at the broken nose Rey had left him with. He wiped his lip with the back of his gloved hand. The blood gleamed dully on the leather.

The few seconds he'd spent delving into the woman's mind had yielded limited results, but he'd got enough from her. The name Omunak reverberated in his head. He saw the city. He saw the deserters.

The Knights regarded him in expectant silence, slowly getting back to their feet. He lifted his eyes to theirs, and a ragged grin broke out on his face.

"Ready yourselves. We have their scent."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 27: Incursion​

Ren's intrusion changed everything. Where the First Order had been distant before, looming on the horizon, they had become a far more immediate threat. A timebomb, and no one on Omunak knew how long they had on the clock.

The division and their new friends had worked feverishly through the night, fighting back fatigue, all nervously glancing up at the sky whenever they had a moment. The Vehement was being coaxed back into full life, but it was a slow, slow business.

Rey, Kaydel and Rose were in the city, helping to get people packed up and down to the Destroyer. There was still equipment here, personal gear and other supplies that they needed. The anti-air guns stayed in place – they'd remain until the very last minute. No one was taking any chances there.

Up at the landing zone, Poe and Finn were busy packing up their own campsite in the grey predawn light . Chewie lugged a crate aboard, shooing Gial into the cockpit for fear of the Porg being squashed. Gial hopped up onto a seat, squawking his discomfort to Poe.

For his part, Poe was busy with the radio. "Maz, I'm gonna need gunships down here quick as you can get 'em. Best we put some of our new friends aboard with you." Quite apart from his urge to keep them safe, he had to be seen honouring his word.

"It's going to be messy, Commander."

"Messy I can live with." Gial squawked again, and Poe silenced him with a sternly pointed finger. He continued. "We can't afford them thinking that we'll bail on them, not now. How soon can we have transports here?"

"If you can find space for them to land, it should be twenty-" She broke off as sirens blared over the channel. Poe knew before she even spoke. "Incoming fleet!"



Star Destroyers bulled into realspace. There were a dozen of them already, but Maz could already tell, with mounting horror, that these were only the outer part of a larger formation which would soon emerge.

She turned to her crew. "All ships, present broadsides!"

"Green and Violet Squadrons, we need you out there!"

"Shields lit, charging cannons!"

"What kriffing fleet is this big?" demanded one of the other captains.

But Maz shook her head. The proximity readings, still flickering on her console, only confirmed what she already knew. Despite her many years of experience, a shudder ran through her. "It's him."

The space at the centre of the enemy fleet contorted and the black blade of the Subjugator thundered into view. Kylo Ren had found them.

"Give them a broadside!" Maz cried, and the Resistance ships threw out a great volley of plasma. It doused the shields of the Star Destroyers, but already Ren's fleet were firing back.

Salvos beat against shields and hulls, and ships began to die.



Ren watched the growing carnage, feeling hundreds of deaths ripple through the Force. Pryde stood next to him, unable to keep a triumphant look from his face. The lights of the battle danced in his eyes.

"Finally," Pryde gloated. "This is where we pay the Jedi back for Endor and Jakku. Now we snuff them out once and for all, and strangle the Resistance's hope."

Ren flexed his fingers as Pryde spoke, savouring the turmoil in the Force around him. He could relish the carnage here, but the fight that really mattered was on the surface. She and him, just as it had been on the Starkiller.

"And I will attend to that myself. I leave the fleet to you." He turned away, locking his helmet into place. His soldiers were already embarked on their gunships, waiting in silent anticipation for the slaughter to come. "Enjoy your work, General."



The first Stormtroopers to make the surface paid dearly for their foothold. The anti-air defences in the city opened up, along with the Vehement's own surface cannons. Through his binoculars, Finn saw a transport pierced through by a beam and bursting into flames, while less direct hits ripped the retros or stabilisers away from others and sent them spiralling to earth across the forest. Explosions bloomed beyond the city.

"That won't be enough," he said grimly. For behind the first wave of transports there were more, TIE Bombers racing ahead to unleash their payloads not on the city, but the forest outside. With typical callous pragmatism, they were bombing swathes of the jungle flat, clearing landing grounds. Once that was done, they'd begin attacking the city and the grounded ship.

Next to Finn, and with just as grave an expression, Arron nodded. "We can't stop them all." He glanced at the defaced TIE Fighters rising into the air. "But we always knew that. Stall 'em, and get everyone we can back to the ship." He glanced at the remaining pallets. "Guess we'll have to find another use for these charges."

Jaicyn appeared with a squad of troopers. They'd pulled on their armour but had draped other items over it, both for relative camouflage and to distinguish themselves from the enemy. "Captain, outer units report contact, north-northwest. I can take a squad and flank them."

Arron looked even unhappier than before. "You won't be able to come back if they get past you." When they got past, he meant – that was obvious to all of them.

"I'll go with them," Finn said. Arron looked at him sharply, but he simply gestured to the Resistance soldiers with him. "I'll take my people too. That many of us, we can fight our way back to the airfield."

Jaicyn nodded fiercely at that. Arron's only response was a nod and a grave word: "Look after yourself, Captain – and my men."

Finn returned the nod. Then he was running, heading for the sound of small-arms fire which had become audible over the booming report of the cannons.

Smoke already hung over the city in thick banks, but they could see the flare of blasters ahead, lighting the outskirts of the city. Jaicyn led them down a side street, parallel to the main parade. They could hear the tramp of boots now, hundreds already, and urgent shouts.

"Here!" Jaicyn motioned them to an alley. They hugged the walls, tensing up. There were Stormtroopers a little way off, all focused on the barricades ahead of them.

Finn pulled his saber from his belt. "One," he began the countdown.

He saw the nervous look on Jaicyn's face, and gave him a smile he hoped was reassuring. His free hand went for a thermal detonator, and the others did the same. "Two."

He armed the detonator. "Three!" He hurled it and began running after the projectile, several more flying overhead.

The first the enemy knew about the attack was a sudden burst of explosions at head height. Stormtroopers were thrown into untidy heaps, the rest wheeling around to confront their ambushers only to be hit with a flurry of shots that dropped several more. Confused shouts echoed over the din.

Finn ignited his lightsaber, deflecting the first volley of blaster fire with a quick sweep of the blade. Then his momentum carried him into their midst, slashing and stabbing.

One of the troopers fired, aiming at Jaicyn. Finn interposed himself and sent the shot fizzing back – it blew the trooper off his feet. Losing no momentum, Finn closed the distance, flinging another Stormtrooper back into a stone wall and running another through. Jaicyn caught him up, slamming his maul into a faceplate. Behind them, the others lobbed more thermal detonators overarm to land further in among the Stormtroopers. The blasts took gouges out of the enemy formation and threw them into confusion.

On the main concourse, the attack on the barricades was suddenly robbed of momentum. Arron's troops made the most of their advantage, leaping out to douse the attackers with fire and driving them into retreat. The Stormtroopers who fell back, suddenly cut off, only found themselves caught between hammer and anvil, with Finn's squads falling on them from behind.

A Stormtrooper company down, and miraculously, no losses to themselves. Finn was tempted to press the attack, to try and drive the enemy right back. But he knew better than that, and the enemy were too sharp for such tactics to work. Quickly, the Stormtroopers regrouped and pressed them again.

"Withdraw!" Finn yelled. They beat a quick retreat, back toward the Falcon.

They'd inflicted some hurt, and Arron's men would have a welcome reprieve. But it couldn't last long, and soon Finn's eyes were drawn up by a series of thundercrack booms, far above. Large craft, entering the atmosphere at speed.

He felt a sudden chill. "We're in it now," he growled.



Rey didn't have her armour on. She'd left it on the Falcon for the entire day, and in their haste to finish stripping the encampment, she hadn't retrieved it. It made for a feeling of horrible exposure, and now there was no time.

Racing out into the open she, Kaydel and Jannah were greeted by the rumble of multiple large craft entering the atmosphere. They looked up, seeing only the lights of the battle above them at first, and the speed-smeared shapes of fighters. But then a cluster of lights caught the eye, growing steadily larger.

"No," Kaydel stammered. "No no no no."

The second wave of First Order craft dropped into view, the menacing outlines of Scythe gunships aglow with the heat of atmosphere entry while the smaller shapes of TIE fighters flocked around them. Already Black and Blue squadrons had taken wing, moving to intercept them.

"Fire!" Jannah screamed into her radio. "Fire already!"

Cannons in the city blazed up at the incoming squadrons as before and several of the gunships came crashing down in flames. Rey saw plumes of flame erupt where they hit, sparking fresh blazes. Fighters and interceptors converged on the Scythes as they swept in, one squadron after the next.

But the Scythes were brutally armed, and their guns opened up in response. Laser beams and missiles stabbed down, melting metal and pulverising stone where they hit. One of Blue Squadron's X-Wings was hit by a torpedo which sheared its wings away, leaving the body of the fighter to plummet and burst into flames on impact. A deserter's TIE Interceptor was pierced by a laser, dead centre, and atomised. Two of the H-Wings rose defiantly, and their guns did deal out some damage, but the Scythes met that onslaught and returned it tenfold, ripping them apart. The volume of ground fire was cut in half, the invaders drifting imperiously down to earth, the fighters little more than an irritant to them.

Nothing could stop the First Order elite from making planetfall. They weren't even a kilometre away.

"We need your ship in the air," Rey breathed. Jannah said nothing, and Rey realised the other woman was rooted to the spot with fear. Because here it came, the carrion-bird profile of Ren's shuttle, and Rey felt the chill take hold of her as well. Unlike Jannah, she could sense his presence – feel it already, malignant and oppressive.

But she couldn't let her fear rule her now. She spun round and grabbed Jannah's shoulders. "Go! Kaydel, Rose, stay with her!" Then she was on the move, racing to the Falcon.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 28: Conflagration​

Ren and his Knights strode out from the shuttle, surrounded by the serried ranks of their troops. Dozens of transports had already been emptied of Stormtroopers, who were fighting somewhere in the city below. The scene around them was redolent of some old, apocalyptic painting. Hungering flames leapt up, consuming trees and belching great pillars of smoke into the sky.

The incandescence turned the gunships into hulking shadows and reflected from the Stormtroopers' armour in a wash of red and orange. The saber sigils on the Death Troopers' breastplates glimmered menacingly, and when the blades of the Knights swept from their sheaths, they shone like a wave of molten copper.

Ren wore the faceplate of his helmet open, breathing in the air of the tortured forest. His cloak billowed and snapped in the furnace-hot winds. For all the smoke, he relished it. By his will, this world burned.

The darkness in him rose in answer to the carnage. To carry the Ren within oneself was to cage a storm within your flesh, embodying and wielding truly elemental power.

Nothing on this world would stand against him.

"Sir!" One of his majors approached. "What are your orders?"

"Send a division against the airfield. I will take the rest into the enemy camp."

"But Supreme Leader, will that suffice for the landing site?"

Ren regarded him balefully. "It will be enough for my purpose."

The man knew enough not to press the issue. He turned and walked off, picking a Stormtrooper division and sending them off towards the airfield.

Ren turned to one black-liveried sergeant and his squad, all armed with shields and vibro-pikes. "You know your duty." The Death Troopers beat their spears against their shields in unison – a single clang of metal on metal – and moved out in the wake of their white-armoured lessers.

Faultless loyalty and zeal. This was what would break the deserters today. Now he turned his eyes to the bright, cold glow that marked the resting place of the Vehement. His ostensible goal – and he knew that this approach would bring his other target to him.

"The rest of you," Ren called to the rest of the division. "With me!" His lightsaber ignited, followed a second later by the blades of the Knights and then the Death Troopers. An indulgence, to be sure – but as Snoke had been wont to say, what was supremacy worth if one did not remember to enjoy it?

And he wanted the deserters and rebels to know their deaths were inevitable.

Ren's troops formed up around him, and they set off at a march for the city.



There was a deep satisfaction in this, Pryde thought, watching Resistance craft and ships burn. The Subjugator's shields and armour scorned their weapons – a squadron of Y-Wings harried it, but they just didn't have the ordnance to do meaningful damage – while its cannons dealt out ruin to anything within range.

It was delicious. Endor, Jakku, Crait… so many slights were being paid back today.

There was just one nagging thing, one ship at the edge of the battle which wasn't as tightly in formation as it could be. "Admiral Griss, order Captain Hauma to pull closer in. The Severity needs to align itself properly." Otherwise there was be a hole in the trap. It was almost as if Hauma was trying to get a firing solution on part of the city itself. Which was quite unnecessary when the Supreme Leader was down there with the 66th. The rebels and the deserters were as good as dead already.

"The Judicial is taking heavy damage," Griss said. "They request permission to pull back."

"Denied," Pryde said coolly, regarding the tactical holograph. "Order the captain to evacuate what personnel he can – whilst keeping the ship able to fight – and monitor the Resistance ships targeting it." He watched the data as it came in, paying only a little attention to the tormented Judicial as the Resistance ships stripped its armour away and geysers of fire burst through its metal skin. One of the Mon Calimari ships, when he had initially taken for a carrier, was dealing the most damage. An artfully disguised bombardment cruiser, he surmised.

"That one," he said, touching a fingertip to the offending vessel's image so it flickered to red. "Prime the autocannons, two-gun salvo."

The Subjugator's three autocannons swung into place, and a whining hum built up. Inside two of the massive barrels, a blood-red glow would be kindling. Pryde turned to the viewports. He couldn't help the cold smile which crept across his face, the delicious moment of anticipation. "Fire," he breathed.

Two blasts of ruby light shot from the Subjugator and struck the Resistance vessel amidships, punching through its shields and igniting the munitions within. The already wounded ship was torn apart from the inside as explosions ran through its hull. Pryde watched hungrily, savouring the knowledge of the scum within, hundreds of rebels who would be immolated as their ship disintegrated, or pitched, silently screaming, into the void. They would hunt down the other Resistance fleets after their business over Omunak was complete. And they would do this to every last one of them. Glory, Pryde thought. Glory and vengeance.

Therefore it took genuine effort to tear himself away and pay attention to Griss again when the admiral approached him. "Allegiant General." Griss looked worried, absurdly so given their crushing advantage here.

"What is it?"

"We've received a transmission, relayed from Vorsk. One of the system's monitor vessels. It looks like the officer who sent it was killed partway through the recording, but what we've received…"

Pryde waited as Griss called up a transcript. As he read it his uneasy curiosity became cold, steely anger. "Hux. Get me a link to the Supreme Leader," he ordered.



Smoke and dust throttled the newborn day, darkening the sky. The city was lit mainly by fire and strobing lasers.

As Ren's forces made for the Vehement, divisions peeled off to assault the airfield and a second front erupted in the city. Returning from their sortie, Finn and his squads had to fight through Stormtroopers as they drew close.

By the time they were in sight of the Falcon, the airfield was ringed by the enemy and they bore down upon them with a chorus of yells, Finn clearing a path with his saber. A Riot Trooper made a beeline for him. Finn caught the shock-baton on his saber, pivoted and ran the Stormtrooper through. Dropping his enemy, he went for his blaster and put holes in the breastplates of three more attackers. Around him, the Scrappers and other Rebel fighters battled on, bolstered by Jaicyn's squads and other Vehement escapees who'd been cut off from their ship.

He fell back to the Falcon's landing ramp, where Poe stood.

"Get on, get on!" Poe called to the stragglers. Those able to hold blasters found cover, the rest boarded gunships. Black and Blue Squadrons wheeled above them, joining the Vehement's TIEs in a savage dogfight against Ren's squadrons.

The first few attacks on their position had been messy, by First Order standards. Individual squads had come at them, and their white-armoured corpses were now strewn across the area. But he could see the purpose in it, the same ruthlessness which he'd lived with for most of his life.

The dead Stormtroopers had been charged with spending their lives to keep Poe's squads tied up here and stop them pulling out or helping elsewhere in the city. Now, there were whole companies on the offensive, advancing in implacable ranks as their fire rippled against the Falcon's shields.

The vegetation around the landing site was ablaze, set alight by flamethrower-armed Stormtroopers. It served a dual purpose, worsening visibility for the defenders and adding to the hellish feel of the battle.

"This is abominable!" Finn and Poe shared a disbelieving look and wheeled to see C-3PO stood by the Falcon's landing ramp with a cluster of astromech droids, all formerly First Order.

"Threepio, this is no time for spectating!" Poe yelled. "Get those droids on the ship now! Honestly," he growled, rising from cover and taking out a Stormtrooper. "He picks now of all times to be a hero."

"You need to get aboard too," Finn grunted to Poe, firing again. On his other side, Chewbacca raised his bowcaster and sent two Stormtroopers flying, head over heels. Finn turned and grabbed Poe's shoulder. "Go! We've got this." Poe glanced at him, nodded tersely, and vanished up the Falcon's ramp.

"Finn!" Rey's voice carried over the din. Finn turned to see her racing across the airfield towards him, staff awash with crackling energies and a gaggle of escapee troopers following in her wake. She pivoted, throwing out her free hand and driving a knot of Stormtroopers to the ground. The fighters behind Rey opened fire, felling the rest.

That exposed a squad of twenty troopers in black plate, their shields glimmering in the firelight and vibro-pikes held tightly in armoured fists. They immediately broke into a heavy charge, straight for Rey.

"Come on!" Finn roared, and moved to intercept them. With a cry, the Scrappers followed and in an instant they were among the enemy, weapons meeting with a clash of metal and the fizzing snarl of energy fields. More Stormtroopers had come up behind their elite brethren, and the fighting reached a fever-pitch.

Ki'rii cried out next to Finn – a Death Trooper had plunged his spear into her shoulder. She fell, and her assailant went to finish the job. Finn lunged, knocking the weapon aside. Then he slashed his opponent's leg. The Death Trooper went to his knees with a distorted roar of pain and fury, and with his own bellow of anger, Finn took the Death Trooper's head off.

That made no impression on the others. Their sheer implacability was both frightening and disgusting to Finn. He'd been raised to kill for the First Order, lived among others conditioned to do the same, but even compared to regular Stormtroopers, these soldiers seemed bleached of all feeling.

Rey caught another blade as it descended towards him, and Finn ducked under it to impale his attacker. "Get her up!" Rey was shouting.

Kuoma rushed in, scooping the wounded Ki'rii up and bearing her away. The Falcon's upper cannon boomed into life, pouring fire into the massed ranks of Stormtroopers. They fell into retreat, undoubtedly to regroup and attack again. The Death Troopers, however, had all fallen in the melee.

"What kept you?" Finn asked Rey, noting how her robes were blackened and tattered.

"The enemy." She signalled to some of the people she'd brought with her. Wounded defenders were taken aboard the Falcon and the gunships, making the most of the respite. "We need to be away."

"Give it just a few minutes more," Finn said. "Till the Vehement's airborne. Then we pull out." He patted Rey's shoulder, now realising worriedly that she only had her robes on. But he had bigger concerns, a nasty suspicion forming in his mind. "Where are the rest of them?"

But Rey wasn't listening. She was staring into the distance, where an opening between buildings gave them a view of the great thoroughfare. It thronged with the serried ranks of Stormtroopers. And among them, Finn saw black armour and glowing red blades – the Knights of Ren and their master, making for the Vehement.

Kylo Ren turned, seeming to sense their gaze. Even at this distance, even with his helmet on, Finn just knew he was smiling. Next to him, Rey had gone rigid, her breaths coming in pent-up hisses. The Scrappers eyed her apprehensively.

Finn reached out to her. "Rey-"

She looked at him, and he saw the desperate fear that he felt in his own heart, etched on her face.

The next thing he knew she'd bolted, feet hammering across the rubble.

"No," he gasped, making to follow before Chewbacca caught his arm, protesting even as the Scrappers took off behind her. All he could do was shout after her.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 29: The Fury of the Ren​

Stormtroopers were now within sight of the Vehement, attacking in force. Bodies lay across the streets and boulevards. Fire lit the city; whole blocks were already ablaze, venting black smoke.

Kaydel and Rose joined the tide of unarmed crew fleeing for the Vehement. At every turn they passed barricades where the ex-Stormtroopers had dug in. This, they both realised, was an eventuality that the Vehement's crew had known about for a very long time.

The defenders were already hard pressed. Anyone who made it through the training process would be a capable soldier, and they were all blooded, certainly. Their experience had forged a profound loyalty to one another. Moreover the city was their territory, and they exploited it to the hilt, dragging the fight onto their own terms. Kill-zones were designated and traps laid even as the outer lines were given up, each one claiming dozens of attackers.

And this was a well-rehearsed fight. Arron and the other officers had chosen this place precisely because it could be made defensible. They'd shaped the encampment to that end, devised tactics and drilled their people rigorously to carry them out. Above all, they had kept in mind that any defence would need to stall an attacker rather than throw them back. It was all about buying time for the Vehement to be loaded and lift off. Aside from the circumstances, this would all be considered exemplary conduct for a Stormtrooper division.

But all that couldn't put them on par with Legions who, for the last two years, had ground their way from one devastated world to another. They couldn't match that readiness to kill at a moment's notice, the ability to shrug off the deaths of comrades and keep moving inexorably onward.

It was a punishing retreat for the escapees, the simple arithmetic of the offensive forcing them further back with every minute. Only the confines of the city, their familiarity with the environment, and the desperate hate they bore for the First Order, kept the battle from turning into a massacre.

And then came the black-clad ranks of the 66th Legion, the Supreme Leader's favoured killers. Their precision was unmatched, their brutality remorseless. With their entrance, the fighting devolved into slaughter. Every barricade was smashed by their heavy weapons squads, their gunnery outclassed the defenders' utterly, and when their close-combat squads charged in, shields raised, they were led by the Knights.

And Kylo Ren fought at their head. He came into the midst of the defenders like a black thunderbolt and where he struck, the line was instantly sundered. With his saber he hacked through limbs and impaled chests, batting away shots with contemptuous ease. With the Force he reached out to hurl his victims into walls, or even to throttle them and break necks.

The Knights around him did the same. The Ren broke upon its victims as a storm does, all of them feeding on the fear, pain and desperate hatred of their victims. Because already, that was all these people were to Ren. They weren't his enemies, they were prey. They had defied him, cost him time and resources and now, they would pay in full.

And there was other quarry here, among the fleeing deserters. He could almost smell the girl Connix, sniff her out like a hunting-beast. Once he had invaded a mind, he knew the feel of it. And Connix would be useful to him, before he killed her like he would every other rebel.

He was close on her tail now, and even if she made it aboard the Vehement, the enemy didn't have time to ready the ship before he caught them. It would only become their tomb.

Ren was quite happy with that notion.

So very close now…



The crowd pressed in around Kaydel, the stench of sweat and fear suffusing the air. She stumbled, almost going down in the crush, but Rose caught her arm and pulled her back up. Kaydel had no time to thank her, barely enough time to breathe. Jannah was shouting, urging people on, trying to make herself heard. Not just above the sound of hundreds of people moving but the sounds of fighting, getting closer.

They were on the slope now, the Vehement looming ahead. The Star Destroyer's guns were blazing away, targeting the TIE craft which spiralled overheard. That meant it was powering up further, closer to liftoff. Closer to escape…

For a second she dared to hope. And then laser-shots smacked into the crowd, dropping people with screams and groans of pain.

The Stormtroopers were on them. And not just Stormtroopers. Kaydel saw the Death Troopers of the dreaded 66th wading into the crowd with shields and vibro-pikes, slicing and stabbing.

Red light bloomed amid the smoke as Kaydel looked back. It stopped her in her tracks. She heard Jannah's breath catch, heard her protesting "No, no…"

The red glow resolved into several. Blades, in the hands of black figures as they emerged. Even if Kaydel hadn't seen one of their kind just days ago she'd have recognised them. The other Knights of Ren.

And at their head, the silver of his armour awash with firelight, Kylo Ren himself. He saw them. He looked directly at her, levelling his blade with a malice that almost stopped her heart.

The Knights came straight for them, pitilessly disposing of anyone who barred their progress. Arron turned, pushing Kaydel forward and levelling a pistol at the attackers.

He got one shot off, glancing a Death Trooper's helmet, before a sizzling blade cut through his wrist. Arron turned white, collapsing back into Jannah and Rose's arms. And now no one was standing between Kaydel and Ren.

For a moment, the fighting stilled as Ren advanced, eyes on Kaydel. "What did she see in you?" he said, softly. His hand flexed on the hilt of his lightsaber, the blade seeming to crackle more viciously in that moment. "And what will it do to her, when I take you from her?"

Terror stole Kaydel's voice. But then she saw another light in the smog – electric blue, moving fast…



Rey broke into a full charge when she spotted Ren. Stormtroopers barred her path – no matter. She wove her way through them, hammering her staff into chest and visors, hunting the red light ahead of her.

Close – closer – and she was on him. She leapt, only for Ren to spin around. He caught her blow and she tumbled away from the impact, rolling over to get back up. She saw the satisfied look on his face and with a horrible lurch, realised he'd anticipated her.

She turned to Kaydel and screamed a single word. "Run!"

Before she could go on the attack, Ren had closed the distance and was hammering at her defences, striking hard and swiftly. The spell which had seemed to fall over both sides broke, and battle was joined again as Rey and Ren duelled.

They had fought against one another only once before, with Ren badly wounded, but she had seen him fight unhindered on the Supremacy. His speed and skill had been astounding, even amid the frenzy of that battle.

Now, he was something else entirely. He laid into her, ceaselessly attacking, exceeding even Gwaelyn's prowess. Every blow threatened to tear the staff from her hands, his overhead swings almost knocked her to the ground.

She knew how reckless this move was – Finn had been wise to hang back. But she hadn't realised the extent of the danger. Blinded by her own rage, her fear for Kaydel, she'd been drawn straight into Ren's trap. The fight was unfolding on his terms and his alone.

She had to get clear, to use her own speed. But every time she tried to evade him, she found herself confronted by a Knight, hemmed in and losing momentum as Ren moved in again. The sulphurous taint of the Ren filled the air around her, oppressive, beating against her senses. And with every exchange, they herded her towards the precipice.

The Scrappers arrived a moment later, crossing blades with the Knights and the Death Troopers around them. Black-armoured troopers went down, but the Knights were too powerful, too skilful to be felled easily. They rallied and pressed back against the Scrappers. Emboldened, Rey struck back at Ren, locking against his blade and pushing up against it – but Ren twisted and drove his boot hard into her shin. She went down.

Cylarei and Nyzar broke through, slamming one of the Knights to the ground and rushing to Rey's side. As one they went for Ren, but he wheeled and fended off their blows with hateful ease.

The other Scrappers were thrown back, driven down the trail with the escapees. The Knights closed in again – one came against Rey with an axe, and before she could beat him back another came in, cutting the air with a curved sword and repelling her. Behind them, Ren slammed Cylarei's blade down, switched back and stabbed her through the heart.

"Cylarei!" Rey cracked her staff into the leg of one Knight and hurled the other off his feet with a thought, and went for Ren once more. He was blade to blade with Nyzar. She could make it. Together, they could take him. They could –

A hooked blade slashed down and took Nyzar's arm off the elbow. He bellowed and swung at the approaching Knight, but Verix swayed aside with fluid poise and opened Nyzar's chest with a flurry of cuts – once, twice, four times. Rey cried out, but there was nothing she could do. Nyzar crashed to the ground, lifeless.

Ren didn't even spare him a look. He had already turned away, advancing again on Rey. "You can't win this," he told her bluntly. The Knights loomed behind him, weapons ready to intercept if she broke past their leader. Their dark iron masks were pitiless, reflected flames glimmering in their sunken lenses.

Beyond them the Death Troopers had rallied, and Rey couldn't even see the rest of her squad. Her universe had become the cage of enemies around her, and the sting of furious tears on her cheeks.

The saber and staff clashed again. As he had before, Ren jabbed and caught her staff, their weapons locking. Rey pushed back against the blade, but then she felt it. Ren's Force powers, being brought to bear not on her, but on the staff itself. Before her horrified gaze, the metal began to flex. She tried to counter Ren's attack, but straining against his weight, she couldn't match it, and a keening sound rang from the staff, rising in pitch.

"Thought you can match my power?" he hissed. "You're nothing."

The squeal of abused metal reached such a pitch that it was barely audible. Then the staff tore in two and Ren pounced.

Rey fell back, but too late – the saber raked across her stomach.



At the bottom of the gorge, Kaydel froze at the sound of Rey's scream, feeling it like a blade through the heart.

In the Falcon's turret, Finn reeled as he felt sudden, searing pain. He slumped forward in his seat before he caught himself, and Poe and Chewbacca started at his strangled yell.

Far off, Leia stumbled and caught herself against a wall, eyes wide with horror.



Pain exploded in Rey's core, a howl of agony tearing from her throat as she folded over the wound. Her legs gave way, knees hitting the stony ground hard and sending a fresh jolt through her. She could barely see, the pain blotting out her vision, but she could sense Ren's next attack unfolding. The crimson blade descended towards her and she barely caught it with the one half of her staff she'd kept hold of. The impact shuddered down her arms, wringing a sob out of her and almost driving her down into the dirt. Ren came into focus, heaving against her desperate defence, eyes ablaze.

His boot hammered into her ribs. Rey felt something crack, and suddenly she was rolling down the slope towards the precipice. At the very edge she caught hold of an exposed root, halting herself though it almost wrenched her arm from its socket. Heaving on it, she dragged herself back onto the rock, whimpering and groaning at the tearing pain in her torso. A red, wet stain was already spreading over her robes.

Ren emerged out of the smoke, a looming shadow against the flames. His teeth were bared, a wolfish snarl distorting his features. His eyes flashed in the shadows of his helmet as he advanced, with the implacable assurance of a man who knew he had already won. He only stopped when the scream of engines sounded behind him, and he turned to see the Falcon and the last fighters take wing.

Immediately Ren reached out with a grasping hand, and the Falcon's ascent stalled, its momentum suddenly arrested. Rey watched in growing horror, seeing the ship quake and hearing the engines strain. "No," she breathed, and with agonising slowness, she raised a trembling hand. Darkness pressed in at the edge of her vision, but with her fingers clawed she found purchase and pulled. Ren's hand was wrenched back, his hold over the Falcon gone. The ship hurtled away.

Ren didn't hesitate. With a roar he wheeled around, eyes ablaze, and lashed out at Rey with such fury that the shockwave tore up earth and stones, flinging them towards her. The maelstrom caught her and she was hurled high into the air.

Then she knew no more.


"No!" Kaydel wailed. Rey plummeted to earth, landing with a sickening crack of bone on rock. Kaydel raced over, falling to her knees and clutching at Rey's broken, unmoving form, sobbing and imploring her to wake up.

She looked up, and through her tears she saw Kylo Ren up on the ledge, staring back at them.

"Fire!" Jannah cried next to Kaydel, raising her blaster. "Fire, damn you!"

The fighters around her lifted their guns and fired up at the ledge, screaming defiance at their nemesis. Ren and the Knights deflected everything they threw at him, but his soldiers went down around him or were forced into cover. It gave the remaining Scrappers the time they needed to rush down the path and join them.

"Captain!" Olesin breathed as he reached Rey. "Stars, no." He scooped her up in his arms, bellowing hoarsely to the others. "On the ship, now!" Tannel grabbed Kaydel and dragged her with him, shooting at the enemy above. One half of Rey's staff had landed next to her and without realising it, Kaydel had taken hold of it. LM caught hold of Rose, sheltering her as he continued to fire up at the ridge.

Covered by the troopers, they retreated aboard, Jannah yelling for a medpack and stretcher. They were produced from some corner, and Rey was whisked off across the hangar.

Kaydel took a few steps after them before she stumbled, slipping to her knees.

"Rey," she whispered.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 30: Falling Blades​

Verix planted his boot on the Zabrak's lifeless chest, raising his hookblades and crowing at the sky. The other Knights were quieter, but the bloodlust and exultation were in them too, causing them to breathe raggedly through their masks.

Further down the slope, Ren lowered his saber, stalking down to the precipice. His breathing was just as hoarse and rapid, his heartback booming against his ribs. There was blood on the grass, black on green in the firelight. Behind him the flames rose ever higher.

"Look…" he said, unsteadily, addressing that bloody patch of grass, "…at what you made me do."

He'd wondered what this kill would feel like for a long time. Now that it had come, it proved to be a strange blend of emotions. There was savage triumph roaring in his blood, just as there had been when he'd slain Snoke. But beneath it was the same hollowness from his father's death, the hollow victory which had only left him feeling weaker. He certainly didn't feel weak now, but there was a sense of loss, as though he'd cut something out of himself.

Down in the chasm, the Vehement's engines began to rumble in earnest. That brought him back to the task at hand. There was still time to press the attack. They would board the Star Destroyer and purge its treasonous crew. And maybe, once he saw Rey's corpse, their feud would feel like it really was over at last.

But through the rumble, another noise intruded – the keening of his holo-unit. He raised his gauntlet and a flickering image of Pryde materialised in his palm.

He mastered himself, not without difficulty. "General, you are interrupting my victory."

Pryde inclined his head. Under the deference, however, Ren could see the man was furious. "I regret the intrusion, Supreme Leader, but I have dire news. Hux has instigated a coup on the Throne Worlds. Gorothad itself has fallen under his control."

It was as if liquid fire had been pumped into Ren's veins, consuming all thought except for one thing. Treason.

The Knights had heard it, and in any case they could feel the anger coursing through him. Yimur approached him. "Master, we can reach them before they lift away. Do we pursue?"

Ren's fury became volcanic. He raised his head and howled at the smoke-filled sky. Pryde remained impassive, waiting for his orders. "Ready the autocannons and fire on the ravine," Ren snarled. "Annihilate the cruiser." Then he killed the holo and activated the comms link to his troops. "Withdraw!"



"Ready the hangars for the Supreme Leader's return and prime the autocannons," Pryde ordered. Around him, officers and crew did their best to act as though they hadn't see such naked wrath from their ruler and scrambled to obey.

Gannylt watched, and tried to breathe slowly. He risked a glance at the man next to him and was rewarded with a nod.

They were out of time. Hux's coup was known to Ren's faction. This was the moment – the moment to strike for true order, to end the misrule.

"Autocannons hot," a weapons tech called, seemingly far off.

"For order?" Theld asked.

Just as he had practiced, he flicked off the catch on his holster and drew his pistol in one smooth motion. He picked his target, aiming straight at Pryde's back. Around him, the others and their troopers did the same.

"For order." He pulled the trigger.

But one of Pryde's guards had seen. How he had done so, so quickly, Gannylt didn't know. All he knew was that there was a flash of gleaming black armour and the next moment the trooper had been hurled into Pryde by his shot, knocking him down.

Worse, as Gannylt sprinted forward he saw the trooper had collapsed on top of Pryde, the armoured corpse providing unlikely cover for the general. "Treachery!" the cry went up, distorted by helmet grilles.

He didn't get a second shot. A plasma bolt hit him in the arm and put him flat on his back, groaning at the pain. The bridge was full of screams and gunfire. Someone else's blaster was on the deck next to him. He rolled onto his side and reached for the pistol with his good hand, only to cry out as an armoured boot hammered down on it.

Another boot thumped into his side. Then another, and the butt of a gun into his back. His assailants turned him over, and he found a half a dozen blasters pointing at him. Klaxons were broadcasting an alarm through the bridge.

Somewhere, someone was shouting. "General, the Severity has broken formation! It's targeting the surface."

Pryde, regaining his feet, didn't hesitate. "Bring us around and intercept! Hauma's a part of this, I know it." He moved out of sight. "Fire on the Severity, full salvo!"

Despite its size, the Supremacy manoeuvred quickly, and the Severity had nowhere to hide. The three blasts reverberated through the deck. Horrified, Gannylt watched the holo display as the Severity ruptured under the salvo. The Star Destroyer was sent spinning away with its bridge gouged open, secondary explosions seething through the rest of the hull.

Soon it would be nothing but a shower of metal fragments, raining down on Omunak. All that planning, all the hopes riding on their scheme… gone.

Gannylt might have lost consciousness after that, he didn't know. There were confused voices sounding over the radio, inconstant holos of the captains on other ships. The alarms continued to blare, until they were suddenly silenced.

He glanced to his right, and found Theld staring back. It took him another moment to realise how distant Theld's eyes were, and that he wasn't breathing.

Footsteps near him. Pryde's face moved into view. His oiled hair was in disarray and he was bleeding from one nostril. Gannylt might have found it funny once, but here and now, it told him they'd failed. Whatever else Pryde was, he was smart enough to stay in cover until an ambush was dealt with.

Pryde bent down, nostrils flaring, and Gannylt felt something wet and warm drip onto his face. "In whose name have you done this?" He signalled, a mere flick of his index finger. The trooper who'd stamped on Gannylt's hand put a boot down on his wounded arm, and Gannylt whimpered. Pryde continued. "What are you? A Resistance plant, a sympathiser on the Supreme Leader's own ship? No…" he muttered, a crooked smile creeping onto his face. "You're Hux's creatures, aren't you?"

Gannylt hissed up at him. "For the sake of true Order, we are."

Pryde shook his head, the old sneer back in place. "I'm almost impressed. I didn't think he'd have the spine to act now, even if he is using someone else."

A Death Trooper approached, speaking in a voice leached of emotion by his speaker-grille. "General, do we send for the executioners?"

"No," Pryde said. "We'll hand these wretches to the Supreme Leader himself. Now recharge the autocannons," he continued. Gannylt and the other survivors were cuffed and dragged to their feet, but Pryde was already striding away. "As before, fire on the ravine and destroy the rogue Destroyer!"



Even with the respite, the Vehement barely won free. It gouged away a chunk of the ravine wall, trailing a great stream of rock and soil. The First Order craft unlucky enough to be caught in its way were swatted out of existence, little explosions dotting the hull. Moments later three spears of red light punched down, annihilating the landscape where they struck.

Molten earth fountained skyward, reaching up after the fleeing ship. The towers of the old city turned to dust, a new and greater chasm opening up to swallow what remained. A monument to the wrath of the First Order, ringed by the fires still spreading across the surface.

But the Vehement thundered up through the atmosphere, chasing the lights of the Millennium Falcon and the Resistance fighters.

Kaydel took it all in, numbly watching the displays on the bridge. Rose and Jannah had dragged her along and coaxed her into a spare seat. With Arron injured and the other officers dead or otherwise incapacitated, Jannah was the closest thing to a leader the ship had right now. She took it in stride and strode the deck, cajoling, encouraging and doing her best to keep the crew on the task at hand. If they faltered, they were dead.

As they cajoled the Vehement into orbit, they met with messages from their new allies. Reports that the First Order fleet was suddenly in disarray and that the Resistance were punching out of the system. The surviving fighter squadrons swept back into the hangar with a few scattered Resistance fighters and straggling transports from the surface.

Maz's crew had shunted the coordinates to the Vehement, and Kaydel felt the thrum of the engines through her boots, building to a jolt as the Star Destroyer leapt into hyperspace. Then there was that strange stillness of faster-than-light travel, and shouts of elation from the onetime Stormtroopers rang out. They'd fought their way clear of the Supreme Leader's vengeance.

Kaydel heard the cheers, but they seemed to come from far off. Everything seemed far off, even the broken half of Rey's staff resting in her lap and the tears that kept rolling down her cheeks.



Gannylt was thrown to the deck, his hands bound, as the shuttle touched down in the hangar. Thuds and groans around him told him that the same had happened to his fellows.

The Supreme Leader and his Knights stalked down the ramp through the billowing steam, coming to a halt in front of them. Pryde stepped forward to greet them.

"Congratulations on your victory over the Jedi, Supreme Leader. Though I do also apologise that these wretches weren't caught before they spoiled the moment."

Ren dismissed the apology. "The Rebels are an afterthought now, even if we have been denied a complete victory here. What matters to us in this moment is the usurper." Ren crouched down, eye to eye with Gannylt. "So, the new officers. Hauma never had the connections to get them assigned, so I think we can attribute this to Torqueda. A pity – when all this is done I shall require a new High Inquisitor."

"When this is done-" Gannylt began.

"I will be dead and Hux will still have the throne," Ren said, sounding almost weary. "I'm sure that's what you've been rehearsing to yourself, Lieutenant. But you can't hide the truth. This little ploy, and Hux's declaration, tell me all I need to know. He required my death to have any real hope of succeeding." Gannylt tried to speak, but Ren gave no sign of noticing. "True, he has Gorothad now, but he didn't want to have to contest it with me."

"He's not a complete fool, then," one of the Knights grated, drawing his sword.

Ren ignored that too, focused on Gannylt. "It's why he was so ready to expend all of you." Ren took Gannylt's face in his gauntleted hand. Gannylt, with that hand locked over his mouth, could only stare back. "Yes, he was sacrificing you all, Hauma included. Even if you were too deluded to see it."

This close, Gannylt saw the quiver of Ren's flaring nostrils. The Supreme Leader's face filled his vision, the yellow eyes boring into his. He saw the rage in them, buried deep like embers under ash but still burning away.

"And there is Hux's weakness. He fears me so much that he would happily use any resources he had to kill me. It's in you as well. I smell that fear on you. So your deaths will be broadcast across my domain as a demonstration to my subjects that I remain alive, and as a promise to Hux and all who follow him."

He pulled his hand away. "You won't prevail," Gannylt spat at him. "Hux will cleanse the First Order, undo this farce of a usurper on the throne. The Dark Side won't be enough."

Pryde's eyebrows rose just a little in arch amusement. "I'm afraid that you've failed to grasp some salient facts about the old Empire and the First Order, boy." He shifted his attention to Ren. "Your instructions, Supreme Leader?"

Amusement played across Ren's face, but he kept his voice level. "Despite the interference of these wretches, the fight with the Resistance which really matters is over. The Jedi are finished, now the girl is dead. There won't be another, and once Hux is dealt with they will be stamped out once and for all."

He stood and stepped away, gesturing for the Knights to come forward. Then he drew his lightsaber with a slow twirl, and advanced on Gannylt again. "So perish all traitors."

As one the blades rose, and as one they fell.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 31: The Wounded​

Chewbacca killed the Falcon's engine and slumped forward in his seat. Around the ship, the Rapscallion's hangar was all equipment and crowds, racing in to tend to damaged craft and wounded people. Kuoma had already taken Ki'rii and a couple other casualties to the infirmary. Poe, Chewbacca and Finn remained slumped at their stations. Nervous energy and instinct had got them aboard, but now that they were, and now they'd heard the full extent of what had happened to Rey, the strength had gone out of them.

The old Wookie put his head in his hands, giving voice to a quiet half-howl.

Finally, Poe found the strength to turn on the radio. "Are we free of them?" He demanded raspily. The Falcon hadn't picked up any tracking locks, but right now, he didn't dare hope.

"There's no sign," Maz replied, shakily. "We'll double-jump just in case."

"Good." That was all Poe trusted himself to say right now, and he turned off the radio before it He stood, finding himself unsteady. Chewbacca stayed seated, lamenting.

The ship had taken a beating on the way off Omunak. Several power-feeds had ruptured from whatever Ren had done to them – it must have been Ren – and they sparked and sputtered in the darkened interior. Lights snapped on and off. Chewbacca's rising howls followed him.

They'd got the news on their way up the gravity well. Rose had barely been able to speak, but she'd eventually mustered the words. Rey was severely wounded, barely clinging to life even now she was in the infirmary. By rights, the medics had told Rose, she should be dead already.

It was a shattering blow. Poe slumped against a wall by the gun ladders, dragging his fingers through his hair, trying to keep the tears back.

Then he heard movement, coming up from the gun pit.

"Why aren't we on the Vehement?" Finn came scrambling up the ladder. He'd evidently woken from his torpor and gone straight to frantic. Poe saw fear in his eyes, and anger. "Get us on the kriffing Vehement!"

Poe held up a weary hand. "The Falcon's not budging any time soon. Finn-"

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Finn levelled an accusing finger. "Don't you dare! I felt it. I need to see her." He made to shoulder past Poe and found an arm blocking his way. He glared at him and pushed again, harder. "Let me-"

"No."

Finn gave a wordless growl and shoved against him, but Poe dug his feet in and pushed back, propelling Finn into the wall.

"Let me past!" Finn's fists beat against his chest. This was its own danger, Poe knew – Finn could knock him down easily enough if he lost control. And then where would they be? "Let go of me!"

"Stand to attention, soldier!" Poe barked. Finn's arms snapped to his sides out of sheer habit. Enough for the red haze to lift. Poe softened his voice and spoke quietly. "Finn, I can't let them see you like this." He continued, struggling to say the words even though he knew they were true. "This is bigger than Rey. Ren can't be allowed to catch us now. For the sake of everyone we pulled off that rock, and everyone we couldn't save, we have to hold it together."

The fight went out of Finn, and he slumped against the wall with his head in his hands. When he raised his face to Poe's again, it was streaked with tears. "I should've gone with her," he croaked.

"No, don't even start," Poe began to respond.

"This is my fault…"

"No. You know it isn't, and if Rey was stood here, she'd tell you the same."

"I should've gone with them. I could've-"

Poe crossed the distance and put his forehead against Finn's. "Don't say that," he told him. "Don't even think it. There were too many of them, and if you hadn't kept your head then we might've lost you as well." He held Finn's gaze, willing him to believe it.

Chewbacca appeared out of the dark, murmuring in agreement, and enfolded them both in his shaggy arms. Poe managed to free one arm and put that around Finn's shoulders. With the other, he patted Chewbacca's shoulder.

"So what do we do?" Finn asked eventually.

"For now," Poe told him, "check on Kuoma and Ki'rii, and the rest of our wounded. They're your squad, they need you now. And then, rest. There's nothing we can do right now, and I need you fresh tomorrow. Listen –" he saw the despondency in Finn's eyes "– listen, the second we're somewhere safe, we'll go see Rey. Talk to Rose – I'll have a word with Kaydel – and turn in. Goes for you too, Chewie."



The Vehement's infirmary was a hive of oddly subdued activity. There were plenty of wounded escapees from the battlefield, and they all needed tending to. Arron had already been in and out within a few hours, heading back to the bridge the moment the medics would let him. They'd tended to his amputation, but he'd refused a bionic arm, telling them to save it for one of the troopers. Plenty of them would be in need.

There were dozens more, some nearly as badly wounded as Rey, and other escapees carrying in people and items. Such was the crowding that the remaining Scrappers had abandoned their attempt at a vigil, seeking a place where they could brood without being in the way. Rose had taken to moving back and forth between here and the bridge.

The stream of people went unabated. But they passed Kaydel in a blur of footsteps, hushed voices, weeping and occasional shouts.

She was trying not to notice it, willing it all to not be real.

Because if it was real, she would be looking at Rey's blood on surgical tools and the scorched and tattered remains of her robes. She'd be looking at charts showing shattered bones, catastrophic internal bleeding. She'd be staring at the broken, inert form of her love, encased in a bacta shell and with a respirator clamped over her mouth.

And then she'd have to acknowledge what they told her. All these measures, all this equipment, wouldn't be enough. Rey couldn't be restored, or even kept stable for more than a day. Kylo Ren had broken her utterly.

And just like Finn, guilt stabbed at her and shame twisted the knife for good measure. This had happened because of her. Because again, she'd got herself in harm's way.

Rey had put herself between Kaydel and Ren. What kind of sick trade was that? A Jedi for a comms officer? That just led to further anger for Kaydel, a burning rage at her own powerlessness. Ren had done all this to the woman she loved, and there was nothing she could do to repay that hurt…

The grind of servos and the thud of metal feet announced LM-976's arrival. He'd come alone this time. Startled, Kaydel looked up at his blunt metal face. To her surprise, she found the usually fierce orange eyes had switched to a softer, sorrowful blue.

"Might I join you, Lieutenant?" She gave a quavering nod, and the stocky combat droid seated himself next to her.

She spoke first. "LM, I hadn't thought to ask how you were holding up. With Nyzar…"

LM turned fractionally to her. "All a gladiator ever asks is that he dies on his feet, and Nyzar got that. Even if I can't call his killer an honourable foe." His eyes glimmered orange for a moment. "The First Order will pay for this, we'll see to it. But I'm getting ahead of myself – how are you doing?"

Kaydel tried to keep her voice firm, but her throat seemed to be constricted. "I…" she said, first as a whisper and then as a gulp. She steeled herself, feeling like she'd got a hold on it.

And then she crumpled, sobbing into her hands as fear and grief poured out of her. LM didn't speak, just placing a hand on her shoulder and letting her get it out.

"I can't lose her," she managed at last, hating how the words sounded – and hating the truth of them so much more.

To her great relief, LM didn't comment on that. He gazed back, levelly as only a droid could. "We won't lose her, Kaydel. I don't care what the medics say, this won't be the end of her." He paused, seeming to recognise how incongruous his next words would sound – but they were still perfectly sincere. "We trust the Force."

He said it so firmly that she almost managed to believe it.



Finn hadn't been able to sleep yet. R2-D2 had trundled after him, making reproachful noises, but he ignored him. That was easier to do than it ought to be, but in his current half-numb state, everything felt distant.

This was like the crash on Jakku, when he'd believed Poe dead, only worse. Poe had simply been gone, and Finn had only known him for a handful of minutes. This time he was forced to wait helplessly, as a friend he'd cherished for years gradually slipped away. It left him torn between smouldering anger and anguish which threatened to leave him in floods of tears unless he kept moving, pacing, doing something, anything.

He made for one of the training rooms, deserted of course. The whole fleet seemed to be feeling a bone-deep exhaustion that went beyond mere physical fatigue. But still, something wouldn't permit Finn to rest.

He hit a single light switch, just enough illumination to see by. Darkness seemed right to him at the moment and besides, he had a light source of his own.

His lightsaber snapped into life, throwing indigo light around the room as he raised it. He closed his eyes and began running through his routine. Djem So, the style Rey had picked out for him from the old manuals, was all heavily weighted attacks and tight, reactive defence. The saber felt heavier in his hands now.

His arms were like lead and his muscles fairly screamed at him, but he forced himself through the patterns, breaths hissing from between his teeth. Attack. Follow-up. Parry. Riposte. Thrust. Parry. Counterslash.

After a minute, he broke off, breathing heavily. Fatigue burned in him, but his misery and anger were unassuaged. Going through the motions, slashing and stabbing at air, wasn't enough. Then he looked to the side, and saw the vaguely humanoid mannequins which stood there, designed for practice with sparring weapons.

Finn glanced down at the saber, then to the targets again. In his heart, the fury uncoiled, heat flowing out to suffuse him. And the next moment, he was running.

He cut the head from the first. Cylarei, gone. He took the limbs off the second. Nyzar, hacked down in indignity. He split the third down the middle. Comrades and friends, murdered. He reaved through the mannequins in a frenzy of swings, sparks and bellows, imagining that these were Death Troopers and Knights of Ren instead. And to cap it all, the dearest friend he had, teetering on the very brink of death. He flung out a hand before clenching it, finally giving voice to his emotions, and with a metallic groan and whine a target imploded, crumpling in on itself. And he hadn't been there. He plunged his saber into the last mannequin, straining against it until the metal began to glow and bubble. He ripped the blade free and the thing came apart.

He slumped to the floor, his rage and grief echoing back at him from the walls. Eventually the sound died away, leaving him with hollow silence and the ache in his heart.



"Should we tell the rest of the Resistance about this?" Maz asked.

Poe winced. It was the conversation he had been putting off, uneasy with the idea of keeping secrets from their own side. But then, he thought back to Crait, and remembered what a reckless, desperate soldier might feel driven to. The truth about what had happened could be dangerous if it got out now. Rey's wounding had already been a brutal blow to morale in the fleet here.

Maz's thoughts were well ahead of his. "It's best you decide now, before people have a chance to rest and start arguing with you. We need to think about what the enemy will do as well, Poe. After what happened over Omunak…"

Fighting among the First Order fleet, the ship crews had said. But Poe hadn't heard the full story. "What exactly happened? You're sure it wasn't just friendly fire?"

She shook her head. "You didn't see it, Poe. The Subjugator and two other Star Destroyers turned on one of their own. There's no way that that was an accident. Something in the First Order has torn wide open."

He saw her point. "And we shouldn't distract them from their internal business. Not to mention what… this would do to their morale." It was bad enough to consider losing his friend without remembering that she was their Jedi, their shining hope. "We keep this quiet, no word to anyone else until we're in friendly territory. But Kylo Ren will be shouting this across the holonet soon enough, and our people deserve to hear it from us first."

She looked at him with an expression he couldn't easily place. "That gives you a day to figure out just what you're going to say to Leia and the others."

Poe sighed heavily. A doleful string of bleeps came from around his ankle; BB-8, his head drooping dejectedly. C-3PO came over, attempting awkwardly to comfort the little astromech.

Poe turned away and considered the state of his fleet and his troops. The holos floating in front of his face told a grim story of their own. The task force had been ravaged. The fighter wings had got off lightly, but even then only Black Squadron had come away intact. A full sixth of the starfighters were lost, another sixth damaged. Half of Ugly Squadron was gone, only two of Silver were left. And that wasn't even the full picture – they weren't yet patched into the Vehement's feed and didn't know how many their new allies had lost.

Poe decided to leave that for tomorrow. He was exhausted, still on his feet when so many were finally resting. Finn and Chewbacca had already keeled over in the Falcon's hold – Poe had asked R2 to confirm that in Finn's case. R2 had also told him about the mess in the training room, which he was willing to leave as a problem for tomorrow if it meant Finn had vented a little.

Rose too was slumbering now, on the Vehement. Almost everyone in the fleet was asleep, and soon the rest would traipse to bed. Absentmindedly, Poe found himself hoping that Kaydel had managed it. She'd been inconsolable when he spoke to her earlier, and he knew she wouldn't have budged from the infirmary. If she had dropped off, she would be curled up on a bench.

Sourly, he reflected that his doting attempts at matchmaking had simply become another source of pain. And under it all, he felt a sense of injustice. He'd done nothing wrong. He'd been careful, damnit, and for all that, this had come down on them. He hadn't understood just what Kylo Ren was capable of.

There, at least, was a target for his anger other than himself. Ren was going to pay for this. The bastard had tortured him before, and taken friends from him, but this was a different order of pain. Poe didn't know how they were going to make him answer for it, but this demanded retribution.

"We need to know more about what's happening in the First Order," he eventually said. For himself – for all of their sakes – he needed to know that they had some way of striking back.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 32: Usurper​

Hux was trying to get comfortable on the throne, with some difficulty. Just like Ren, his body wasn't the size and shape for which it had been designed, and the black stone was hard and cold even through his uniform. He would have to see about getting the chamber adequately heated, when his rule was secure. A throne which fit him properly, too. And some proper ornamentation – banners, battle standards commemorating his victories. That might begin to make the place feel like his own.

At least Ren's nasty old relics – the ones he'd left in the Palace, anyway – had been cleared out. They were now in the keeping of the Inquisition, and Hux found it markedly easier to breathe in the throne room now. Moreover, the ghoulish presence of the Knights had been replaced by a company of his finest troops, now liveried in bright crimson, in an echo of Snoke's Praetorians. They leant, Hux thought, some much-needed colour to the place. Not to mention serving as a reminder of Snoke, to whom he was quite clearly the rightful successor.

There was a sudden muttering among the officers stood before the throne, shaking him out of his thoughts. A brief flicker of concerned looks, soon stilled. Hux sat up a little, fixing them all with a questioning glare.

"Supreme Leader," Stolan said. "We have word from Omunak."

Hux leaned forward, his heartbeat quickening. "Did they get him? Is Kylo Ren confirmed dead?"

"Sir," Stolan said, shifting with a rare degree of discomfort. "This might be best demonstrated by the broadcast."

"Broadcast?" Hux tried not to let his unease show. The Supreme Leader did not display weakness. He gestured to one of his attendants, and the holo-projector lit up.

It took him a full second to believe what he was seeing. His mind revolted at it, but here was the visage of Kylo Ren, undeniably and hatefully alive. And more pertinently, wracked with fury.

"Armitage Hux, former general of the First Order." No preamble then. Just a blunt declaration. Ren's voice boomed throughout the throne room, a wrathful thundercrack which reverberated. The image of his face was similarly outsized, filling the space before the throne. "You have made yourself a traitor to the regime and thus sentenced yourself to the most excruciating death that can be devised for you. If you have any loyalty to the First Order left, then you and your co-conspirators will submit yourselves to me upon my return and accept your fate. Otherwise, every single person who stands with you will also die for your treason. There is no wall you can hide behind that I will not tear down, no army that my forces cannot slaughter."

Out of the corner of his eye, Hux spied pale faces, queasy expressions. But enough of his lieutenants met the invective coolly, and the Stormtroopers were as stolid as ever. For his part, he kept his gaze forward, holding Ren's holographic eye.

"As a courtesy, I give you this chance to reflect on what you've thrown away, Hux. You were exalted by the First Order, given the power of life and death over entire worlds. Now you have earned yourself disgrace, agony, and obliteration. Submit, and I may just cut straight to the execution." Ren leaned closer to the camera. "Think on that, and choose wisely."

That was it. The hologram blinked out. Hux sat back, fingertips tapping against each other. Later, he would reflect that the equipment might need recalibrating. It didn't do for anyone to appear larger and more powerful than whoever occupied the throne.

For now, there was only a gnawing unease in his stomach, and a simmering anger which he focused on to blot out his worries. Anger was good, anger was righteous and gave him purpose.

It had plenty of targets. The would-be assassins for their clear failure. At Torqueda, who had devised the attempt – but that too could come later. Right now, the main source of his ire was Kylo Ren himself, once again surviving when he had no right to do so.

"There was another announcement," Stolan continued. "Ren claims to have killed the Jedi, the one he claims killed Snoke." Another propaganda victory for Ren.

"Then at least he's done us that service," Hux remarked, hoping it sounded as dry as he tried to make it. Hoping that they couldn't tell that his blood was close to boiling.

There was a quiet cough from among the gathered officers. "It's been broadcast to the entire Galaxy," Torqueda observed. "A deceptively layered message. Quite cunning really, when you consider Ren's full meaning."

Hux didn't have the time or inclination to admire Ren's hidden subtleties. He balled his fists to hide the tremor in his fingers and forced a level tone. "Put the throne worlds on a full war footing. Maintain the lockdown here and reallocate assets from other worlds. Take them from garrisons wherever we can afford to, strip the training camps of any cadets who can fight – and be trusted."

They would not be stationed within the Palace itself. Hux already had the shape of the deployment in his head. There were fortresses across the planet and the stations above, all of them host to hardened soldiers who could be more profitably used here. Ren's objective above all would be the Palace, but those locations would need to be secured first. Hux could exploit that, just as he could across the other Throne Worlds. Sacrificial pieces, all, and when Ren took those he would weaken himself.

He raised his voice further. "Ren's attack will break on us like fire on stone and disperse. He can rage all he likes, but we will remain unscathed. He will perish in disgrace, revealed for the lunatic he truly is." That was the old officer's training, the snarling rhetoric which he excelled at. The Stormtroopers were primed to respond to it, and he could see the fervour it stoked in the eyes of Stolan and the officers.

Torqueda, however, looked less certain. "Sir, the risk inherent in claiming those cadets-"

"Is nothing to the risk if we fail to guard ourselves properly against the usurper!" Hux snapped back.

He knew what Torqueda would say; the cadets were unproven, especially when faced with the battle-hardened legions who served Kylo Ren. The 17th, the 9th, the 108th and the black 66th… those butchers would chew through raw recruits and never once pause. But if the inexperienced troops slowed down the enemy advance, if killing a division of them depleted power packs and the invaders lost time to that, if their deaths allowed Hux to hold out until reinforcements arrived, then they would have been of use.

What one man would dismiss as a pile of corpses, a stronger and wise man would make into a barricade. That was the old saying, wasn't it, about desperate times and desperate measures?

Not that he was about to speak of it in those terms. He rose to his feet. "We are the First Order! The Galaxy is ours by right of conquest, its people our coin to spend!"

This, he knew, was simply what it took to ensure that true order survived. Purges and violent upheaval were part of the process. Corruption like this could only be removed forcibly. That was as it should be. Palpatine had understood that. So had Snoke and so, for all his faults, had Hux's father. Ren's survival and impending return only served to drag it out into the open.

"I have given my life to this regime and now that we have dragged it from the clutches of misrule, I will not permit it to slip back!"

He drew himself up, eyes roving over the assembled officers and troops, challenging any of them to dissent. As one, they saluted. "No backward step," he snarled. "We are in this to the death."



Training encampments were emptied in nearby sectors, Star Destroyers roving into orbit and departing with their holds full. Across systems close to Gorothad, fortresses teemed with nervous new garrisons, their overseers stalking grimly through the ranks and watching for any sign of weakness. Squads were formulated accordingly. Those most likely to break would be placed in the line of fire first, where their frailty would cause the fewest problems. The veterans were held back, where they would be most useful.

As Kylo Ren's flotilla made their vengeful way back towards the Throne Worlds, the Supreme Leader did the same; incorporating fleets into his, seconding occupation troops, stripping academies of trainees and issuing them with weapons. Even indigenous defence forces, which served with the First Order's temporary approval, were claimed. Vehicles fresh from the factory were snapped up by requisition fleets.

Pryde and Ren carefully set roles for each division and company, based on their experience and ability – a process abetted by the First Order's adroit record-keeping. Just like Hux, they designated most of the new additions as sacrificial assets.

"Ablative casualties", they were called. An old Imperial euphemism, a polite phrase for units whose true purpose was to be expended, draining enemy resources or providing cover for more valuable assets.

That method found less favour with the Empire's successors. But facing their own kind, both Hux and Ren had made the same calculations. Every advantage must be exploited, no matter the cost. And for Hux and Ren alike, all considerations paled beside their struggle. Nothing less than control of the Galaxy was at stake.

Both claimants to the throne sent out a call to arms, each calling upon the generals and admirals of the First Order to fulfil their oaths to the First Order and defend the rule of its rightful master. Some chose their side quickly, if they had not already, hastening to add their strength to Ren's or Hux's. Others found themselves caught in the path of an oncoming fleet and were commanded to fall in line or be destroyed. Some of those capitulated, others chose to resist and die.

Among those lucky enough to be on the sidelines, however, there were commanders who preferred to sit back and watch the situation as it developed, waiting to see if a likely victor emerged. When the fighting reached Gorothad, or if Ren's advance was somehow stalled, they would move to the warzone and fall upon the losing side.

They weren't the only ones watching. Deployments on this scale could never be concealed, and Resistance spies took note. Quickly, as their missives reached the commanders, a picture began to form. A brewing conflict which would rip the First Order in two. And in the First Order's riven state, a potential source of hope for the downtrodden.

The Galaxy held its breath.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 33: Sacrifice​

Somewhere indeterminate, without any sense of space or time, Rey floated. She was inert, formless, sunk so deep that she couldn't even see which way was up or if there was an up at all.

She should be dead. She knew that. Her body was broken. The memories were razor-sharp in her mind. She couldn't summon up the memory of the sensation. To her surprise, she found that she felt robbed by that, craving even the pain just to feel something again.

But everything else was vivid.

Scents of woodsmoke, scorched fabric, the sharp, acrid tang of her own burned blood… her screams of anger, then despair and finally pain. And as she sank into the memory again and again, she caught other cries. An enraged yell from Tannell when Ren plunged his blade through Cylarei's heart, LM's mechanical lament when Nyzar fell. And later, when she was swept over the ledge, Kaydel's scream.

Too much. Too much sorrow, and too much guilt. She fled from the memory, but all else was a haze. She was confined, more profoundly than she ever had been on Jakku. She was denied any way to measure and mark the passing of time: no calendar, no wall to scratch the tally of days into.

At length, out of the murk there came visions, swimming up out of the depths. They came to her fleetingly. She saw the cave from her dream again, the myriad phantoms. But this time she found no purchase there at all, and the vision came apart as soon as her eyes attuned to that faint, beckoning glow. You are nothing, the voice of Kylo Ren told her, and to nothing you return.

She was beaten, crushed by her enemy. She ought to have been taken by nothingness already, as Ren's voice insisted. And yet death refused her, keeping her held at the threshold as her body slowly gave up. Some dim trace of awareness told her it was coming. She would face the end just as she had feared she would; alone and in the dark, having failed the ones she cared for most.

In the end, was her fate – deterioration, this decaying orbit – any different from the pauper's grave where her parents had ended up?

That realisation was its own pain, a soul-deep ache. There was no excising it, no way to weep or scream or rage at her fate. Despair engulfed her, drowned and permeated her. All she could do was wait for it to end.



Finally, Poe and Maz deemed the fleet out of immediate danger. They were well beyond the border of the Tion Sector now, floating again in the deep void. Now Poe had a chance to really take stock of the damage to their remaining ships – and the vessels which had been lost. A full quarter of their little fleet which, he had to remind himself, constituted them getting off lightly. If Ren's fleet hadn't fallen into infighting, the Vehement would have been boarded or destroyed, and the Resistance fleet trapped and blasted to atoms.

"You haven't shaved," Finn said by way of greeting, giving him a concerned frown.

"Huh?" Poe ran a hand over his chin and found heavy stubble. "Bah, I haven't got time to shave right now."

The same could be said for the rest of the fleet. He'd set the personnel to carrying out repairs, had his officers recombining the most ravaged squads and companies. Finn, for his part, had led the clean-up in the training hall, clearing the mess thoroughly enough that Poe had decided not to raise the issue with him.

Despite the activity, the mood on the Rapscallion hadn't improved much. The crews and companies were listless. Even BB-8 was still miserable.

He turned to Finn, lowering his voice. "Any word from Rose and the Vehement? Any change with Rey?"

Finn exhaled slowly, steeling himself before speaking. "She's clinging on like nothing else, but still getting worse. Even if we had the tech to fix her… kriff." He blinked back tears. "You'd be looking at making another Vader out of her to bring her back."

Poe shuddered. The very idea of doing that to anyone, let alone Rey, was unconscionable.

"I hate this, Poe," Finn whispered. "I can't stand to see her go this way."

"I know, Finn."

Maz spoke up. "General."

Poe didn't hear her. "But Rey wouldn't want us to give up."

"General."

"We've got to push - wait, what's that?" Then he realised it was the chirp of the holo-unit, confirmed by Maz's look of mild, patient exasperation. They had an incoming contact – a Resistance signature, but a remote one. Coming from the Solo of all places.

He gave the comms officer the nod, and D'Acy's image materialised in front of them.

He was so surprised that he forgot formality. "Larma? The hell are you doing here?" There hadn't been any contacts scheduled, for fear of the First Order intercepting.

"Rey," she replied, and the bridge fell silent. Finn saw Poe shoot Maz a suspicious look, and get a shake of the head in reply.

"How'd you…" Poe stopped himself. "Leia?"

She must have felt Rey's wounding, he guessed, just like Finn had. From the looks on Finn and Maz's faces, they'd intuited it as well. Leia must be summoning them – though why wasn't she the one sending the message?

"If I might make so bold…" To Poe's surprised, 'so bold' actually meant C-3PO. He looked nervously around, but none of them objected. "Where is the General?"

"And where are we meeting you?" Poe followed.

"To answer both of those questions," D'Acy replied. "We're coming to you."

Maz passed the word on to the other shipmasters, even as proximity alerts rang out and ships jumped into view. Leia had brought a small fleet along with the Solo, though the escorts parted to let the battleship through. It advanced on the Vehement.

Another voice rang from the comms unit. Arron. "Commander Dameron, your battleship is requesting we let a shuttle on board."

Poe caught Finn's eye and nodded. Leia must already be on that shuttle. Why?

He kept the question to himself. "Do it, Captain. We'll be there shortly." He turned to Maz. "Point me at a working transport. Finn, we're going over."



They grabbed Chewbacca and those escapees who they'd brought aboard during the battle, Jaicyn among them. The former Stormtroopers all seemed a bit lost on the Resistance ship and didn't stray far from the hangar – and took some of the gunships over, setting down next to Leia's shuttle. Maz and C-3PO had decided to come with them, and none of them had seen any reason to argue. Poe noted that there were still a handful of Resistance troopers stood around the transport, eyeing their surroundings uncomfortably.

Rose was waiting for them, flanked by Jannah and Arron. The captain's truncated arm was in a sling, though he seemed to be bearing up pretty well. Finn took a few halting steps forward towards Rose, and they fell into each other's arms. After a few moments, Finn felt brave enough to pull away and ask. "Where are they?"

"Already making for the infirmary."

"Then we'd better follow," Poe said as he moved past them. Jannah beckoned, and the others hurried along in their wake.

"What's she doing?" Jannah wondered out loud. "They say the General's strong with the Force, but what can she do for Rey?"

"There's one possibility," Maz responded, almost jogging to keep up with their longer strides. "But it will… oh my."

Finn's breath caught in his chest. He and Rose realised in the same moment. "The healing."

Maz nodded rapidly. "But if Leia intends to do that for Rey, in her state… it will take everything."

Their rapid strides carried them into the infirmary and almost into a medical officer, who moved straight to Arron and Jannah.

"Carey," Arron started. "What's happening in there?"

"Organa – I mean the General, she's... she's ordered the medics to disconnect the apparatus from Rey."

Poe heard a sharp intake of breath from Maz. Instinctively, they all looked to her, even Arron seeming to defer to the little privateer. "Leia knows what must be done. We have to let her."

Kaydel, now they could see her, looked less certain about that. Poe saw her now, stood opposite Leia. They were behind glass and it stole the sound of their voices, but Kaydel's expression was fraught. She looked as though she was torn between hope and despair, eyes wide and brimming with tears, pleading with Leia and protesting at the same time.

"Maz," Finn asked, "you said it would take everything." His question rode on the words, with no small amount of fear.

Maz took a breath. "What Rey did for Kaydel was the direct transfer of life force from one being to another. It was never recognised as part of the healing arts, not like the more gradual techniques, and the Jedi discouraged it save for the direst circumstances."

Leia put a hand on Kaydel's shoulder. Kaydel seemed to relent, her face scrunching up as Leia embraced her. Then she was stepping aside, and Leia moved to Rey's bed.

"But," Maz continued. "I think Leia has decided this moment is desperate enough."

Leia's back was to them, but there was still an ineffable sense of sorrow and weariness. Kaydel had retreated to the corner of the room, hands clutched to her mouth. Gently, Leia pulled the respirator from Rey's face. Then she laid a hand on her wounded stomach, and they all felt a sudden thrum in the air of the infirmary.



Into Rey's cold, dark solitude, something intruded.

At first it was almost imperceptible, but the second she noticed it, the effect was profound. It was as it a light had been brought into the darkest corner of some deep ocean. In her unmoored, weightless state, there was suddenly an up and a down. And from above, something beckoning, reaching for her, lifting her up from the depths.

No. Someone.

"Leia", she breathed, and suddenly there was sensation. Her consciousness again encompassed her broken body. There was pain among it all, but it was far off, cushioned by Leia's soothing presence.

Pressure, now. A hand on her forehead and another, pressing a little harder, on her torso. Leia's touch.

And through them, she felt the flow of energy between them. Not just the power of the Force but something she recognised as more vital. The same thing she'd done to Kaydel, but far stronger. Leia's own essence was bleeding out of her as she channelled it into Rey.

"No, Leia," she said, and heard her own words as if from far off, felt the merest suggestion of her eyes prickling with tears. Weakly, she raised a hand and found Leia's wrist. "Stop… you can't…"

But there was no overruling her. The power that had gone untapped for so long flooded into Rey, knitting bone, muscle and skin back together.

Noises, outside her, far distant. Murmurings and protests building into gasps and then cries of anguish and loss. She heard C-3PO crying aloud, a sob from Kaydel and Chewbacca howling.

Leia was weakening, burning herself out, and yet there was no end to the flood of energy which poured into Rey until…

She slowly pulled herself upright, eyes easing open. There was light. Searing, too bright to see for a moment. And by the time she could see, Leia's presence had fallen away into nothingness.

Rey found herself clutching at an empty gown. Leia was gone. Gone, like Han, like Luke. And the grief surged up inside her, for all of them, for everyone and everything she'd lost.

It was too much. She buckled, tears coursing silently down her face. Kaydel approached, her own face awash with tears, and without a word she embraced Rey.



Poe stood, one hand pressed against the glass, the other gripping Finn's shoulder tightly. Rose had her arms around Finn, sobbing into his other shoulder. Around them, the rest were still. Not one of them spoke, though all of them wept, unable to process what they had seen.

It took the chittering of his comms unit to snap him out of it.

D'Acy's voice. "Commander, we've lost Leia's signal. What's happened in there?"

Finn slipped away to enter the room and embrace Rey, who seemed as distraught as any of them.

"Larma, she's…" Poe's voice cracked. "Leia's gone."

Her breath came shuddering through the little speaker. "How, Poe?"

"She…" he struggled for the words, not wanting to say them and accept the truth, but forcing himself to. "She sacrificed herself, Larma. To keep the spark alive."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 34: Grieving​

Ren awoke with a start and came off the bed in a single motion. He was reaching for his lightsaber before he realised there was no threat in the room with him, and that what he had felt was far off. Far off, and yet it was inside him too. As the aftershocks reverberated through him, he rasped a word he had not used in almost a decade.

"Mother."

She was gone. The last living family member he had, the one link to the past he hadn't been able to cut away, now gone.

He came out of the combat stance and stepped away from the bed, feeling unbalanced in a way that he couldn't entirely put down to fatigue. Only now did the chill of the marble under his bare feet become apparent.

The lights were low, but enough for Ren to see by. Regarding himself in the mirror, he watched how the scar which disfigured the left side of his stomach contorted with his laboured breathing. He'd sustained that, of course, when he killed his father.

Everything about that act had been immediate, death delivered by his own hand. But this stood in total contrast. It was not of his doing, and he felt it from what seemed like half the Galaxy away.

He reached out into the Force, following the echoes. What had caused it? What had finally got her? The lingering effects of void exposure, perhaps, or the strain of leading the Resistance. Perhaps even the shock of him felling Rey, carried through the Force. She hadn't been killed – violence would have been apparent to him. A user of the Dark Side was, of course, especially sensitive to that. So what, then?

Understanding eluded him. The Force was occluded. She was simply gone, and he couldn't determine why.

So here he was, cut loose from his bloodline and having rid himself of his master and counterpart alike. His link with Rey too had gone hollow and cold, before it died away altogether. Unburdened… or unmoored?

All his personal connections, save to the friends who he had turned into his thralls, were gone now. Even Luke's spirit was silent. That was vindication in its own right, he supposed, yet it also left him alone, save for the Knights, slumbering in their own quarters.

No, he told himself. This is what supremacy means. One to embody the power, for there can be only one upon the throne.

Which was when he remembered that right now, Hux occupied that throne. His empty hand balled into a fist at the mere thought, his lips peeled back from his teeth. A pretender, a weakling who would have everything he had done and sacrificed rendered meaningless. Hux should have learned his place when Ren throttled him into submission before. He'd had his chance.

Ren turned back to the mirror, running fingers through his beard. It struck him that he looked leaner than he had before, his body whittled down until only muscle, bone and tendon remained. Had he missed that change? When had that corpeslike pallor settled into his skin? That marble white, on which filth and gore showed so starkly after a battle.

Perhaps it had been during his exploration of the unquiet catacombs on Malachor, and the struggle with the spectres that infested in it. His eyes ran over the scar which nearly bisected his face – when had he grown used to that?

For a moment he allowed the nagging thoughts to bubble back up to the surface, hearing his uncle's injunctions once more. That these were marks of diminishment, his body and soul being hollowed out by the Dark Side.

But that implied that the Dark Side was claiming him, as if he didn't have mastery over his own power. And that was a falsehood – had he not just killed the last warrior in this Galaxy who could stand against him?

A contemptuous smile twisted his face. The idea of degeneration was for children and weaklings. Ren felt the power that coursed through him and knew better. The strong were strongest if they stood apart, free of any taint from the weak.

Why, after all, should Rey's failure to choose the right side be his weakness? He had told her that she couldn't carry the legacy of the Jedi, and in trying to prove him wrong, she had been crushed. Just as he had told her.

The saber was still in his grip. He turned it over, noticing it as if for the first time. On the crosspiece, there remained a few traces of ash and blood.

He was so close being rid of the enemies who had dogged him. Just a few more pushes, putting down Hux's coup and grinding out what remained of his mother's brigands.

They will all be crushed. You next, Hux.



Torches, clutched in thousands of hands, burned brightly under the darkening sky. Rey moved slowly forward among the crowd, a black hood drawn over her head. Her friends were around her, dressed similarly.

Ahead was a little shrine, firelit. With no body to lay to rest, they'd improvised a cairn and built a small pyre atop it, burning Alderaanian incense in keeping with the traditions of Leia's long-lost homeworld. There were a number of Resistance commanders up there – all veterans apart from Poe. There was Wedge Antilles next to D'Acy, and beside him Admiral Lando Calrissian, exchanging his usual luxuriant garb for sombre colours.

They were stood on another planet which Leia had, for a long time, called home. Yavin IV, its ancient pyramids bathed in pink and red light by the last rays of the setting sun. Above, those rays also caught the ships which orbited the planet. This was the world in whose skies the Battle of the First Death Star had been fought and won. Where the Rebel Alliance had proven that the Galaxy might know hope again.

And yet Rey could find no hope for herself. She felt hollowed out. Leia had restored her body, but her spirit couldn't be mended the same way. It gnawed at her, this feeling of uselessness. Ren had proven he could destroy her, barely even breaking a sweat in the process. That despair had hung over her since she awoke from her coma.

When they'd released her from the infirmary, letting her return to her cabin, she'd found herself in floods of tears. She couldn't even begin to articulate her grief and despair to Kaydel; all she would do was give incoherent voice to it all, convulsing with sobs as Kaydel held her and wept with her.

It wasn't just Leia she was mourning. Nyzar and Cylarei's deaths hung as heavy on her as they had during her coma. Luke and Han came to mind too; the ceremony was a painful reminder that she'd never got to pay them the same farewell.

She'd been too slow, too afraid, when Ren intruded. Had I acted in time, I could have kept him from Kaydel. And then when the battle came, her reckless assault on Ren had led Nyzar and Cylarei onto the blades of the Knights. There's blood on my hands, the blood of my friends and my last mentor.

As if reading her thoughts, Kaydel reached out and took hold of her arm. Rey placed her hand over Kaydel's and squeezed, trying to put on a brave face.

She knew that the General's loss grieved Kaydel just as deeply as it did her; Leia had been Kaydel's idol and a solid, reassuring presence since she joined the Resistance. Through years of alternating ridicule and distrust from the Republic, trying in vain to warn them of the danger, Leia had been unbent and undaunted. In the weeks of freefall after the Starkiller, she had held the Resistance together. And over two years after that, she had been the heart of the movement as it rebuilt itself. Suddenly, the Resistance found itself staring at a future without its founder, the woman who had been its heart.

A scream of engines brought faces snapping up to watch as half a dozen fighters streaked past. A commemorative flyover – two X-Wings, a B-Wing, a Y-Wing and a pair of A-Wings, all drawn from different squadrons. They shot into the distance, just beginning to arc back around as they disappeared from view.

As the thunder of their passing died, Poe began to sing, and around him a few people joined in. It was another Alderaanian song, a lament which Kaydel quickly picked up. Rey joined in, then others did too, some simply humming. But soon the song was taken up by the entire crowd, as tears ran freely down faces and the sun dropped away.

It felt, Rey thought, like the kind of mourning she should have been able to give for Han and Luke as well. All three of them now, all three of the old heroes who'd shepherded her through this journey, gone.

D'Acy took to the stand, beside the pyre. What little noise there was from the crowd died away, leaving only the sound of the pyre.

Her voice shook as she spoke. "This speech was hard enough to give when Leia was merely injured above Crait, but she always taught us that we can't shy away from what's difficult. If she hadn't believed that, the Resistance would never have been formed. We owe it to the Galaxy, and to our general, to fight on. The chain of command is clear." She paused, letting the crackle of the flames become the only sound again. "Commander Poe Dameron."

The hush deepened as Poe moved to the centre of the dais and knelt before D'Acy.

"By Leia's will, you are hereby named general, commander-in-chief of the Resistance."

A murmur met the announcement, but no disagreement.

Poe got to his feet, turning to face the crowd. "Friends," he began. "First, I want to thank you for your trust in me. There were times when I wouldn't have deserved it." He paused. "But I can't dwell on that all night. There's no ignoring this; the Resistance has suffered a dreadful loss. Leia brought us together and kept the ship steady in the face of everything the First Order could throw at us. Losing her could only ever hurt us – but as she herself said, it's no good believing in the light only when you can see it."

Rey saw people nodding around her. Poe continued. "Even now, there's hope. Our spies have confirmed that the First Order has descended into outright civil war. Battered as we are, they have given us an opportunity like we've never before. We have a chance to strike at them, hit them where it hurts most, and we need to seize it." A low rumble of agreement ran through the crowd, and Rey saw Kaydel shoot her a glance. She tried to look like she felt as encouraged as the rest, trying to set her jaw determinedly.

Kaydel, naturally, wasn't fooled for a second.

Jannah emerged from the ranks of the former Stormtroopers and approached Poe. She carried her blaster, the weapon lying flat on her palms. The white paint had been stripped from its casing.

She knelt, holding it out him. "General, you and your troops fought for our freedom when you owed us nothing, and sacrificed many lives to save us from Ren. By common consensus, we've agreed to repay that debt. If you'll have us, we'll fight for the Resistance until our dying breaths. We'll be with you in your war against the First Order."

Poe beckoned her up and embraced her. "No one kneels to anyone else in the Resistance, Jannah. And your offer is gladly accepted. I welcome you, and everyone else on the Vehement, to the Resistance."

Jannah inclined her head. "Thank you, General. Just one thing – our ship's no longer the Vehement. From now on, she's the Defiance."

A murmur of approval emanated from the crowd at that.

Poe nodded approvingly. "A fine name, Jannah. And you've proven yourselves more than worthy of it." He and Jannah saluted one another, and she withdrew into the crowd.

Poe turned again to his audience, seeming to struggle briefly to find the right words. But the fire was back in his eyes now. "I won't pretend to know what Leia would say now, but I'm not going to stand here and tell you to bury your feelings. If we don't acknowledge what we've lost, then we cease to be ourselves. So now, we grieve. We weep tonight, because tomorrow we need to rise with clear eyes, and carry on the fight."

There wasn't a cheer, just a rumble of weary assent. Slowly, the crowd dispersed. Eventually, even Chewbacca had gone trudging back to the Falcon, leaving Rey and Kaydel alone on the square.

Rey walked haltingly over to the cairn. Her injuries were gone, but the memory of the pain was still cruelly strong in her mind. Robbed of her staff's reassuring weight on her shoulders, her movements were furtive compared to her old stride and she slumped to her knees when she reached the cairn.

She stretched out one hand, laying it on the piled stones. With the other, she felt the scar which Ren had left her, a ridge of tissue which ran across her abdominal muscles. The indelible mark of her defeat – of her failure.

"Rey?" Kaydel took hold of her shoulders, gently massaging them.

She tried and failed to find the words, trying desperately not to collapse into tears. She couldn't do this, couldn't be what the Resistance needed her to be. "I don't know what to do, Kaydel. I'm lost."

And then a voice floated out of the dark, dry with age, weighted with sorrow and yet rich and warm. "You're not lost if you haven't finished building, Rey."

She looked up. There, at long last, he was, and she felt a rush of disbelieving happiness. "Master Skywalker?"

Luke's spirit stepped out from behind the trees, a sad smile on his old, bearded face. He stood straighter than he had in life, however, and his stance was purposeful. In the same way, his appearance was different – the hair was cut shorter, the beard neater, the garb altogether sharper.

Rey turned to Kaydel, and unsurprisingly she looked baffled. Rey grinned nervously at her. "I promise I'm not going mad, just…"

Because that would definitely wash when she'd just come out of a coma, and was about to say she was seeing someone who wasn't there. But Kaydel, bless her, smiled shakily back. "Jedi business?"

"Yes, that."

Kaydel pulled Rey to her feet and hugged her, kissing her on the cheek. "Then come find me at the Falcon when you're done, huh?"

"I hear and obey." Then Kaydel was off, leaving Rey with Luke. She moved over to him, and for a few seconds they were silent.

"Hello again, Rey." Luke cast his gaze towards the cairn, where the pyre was down to embers. "A sorrowful time, on two counts. Leia's passing grieves us all, and well…" His eyebrows twitched upwards. "You and I didn't exactly part on the best terms."

She winced a little. "I think I owe you an apology for that too."

He shrugged affably. "The knock to the head wasn't entirely undeserved, though I accept your apology. Neither of us were as considerate as we might've been. But cutting to the point, I owe you one last lesson."

Rey shook her head. "What can you teach me – I mean, what can I hope for to give me an edge? He… Ren has grown so far beyond me." The dam which had stopped her from explaining to Kaydel broke. "This thing I'm trying to carry, the legacy of the Jedi, it's too much. I can't, I don't know how to rebuild what you've left me."

Luke's wise old eyes regarded her. "You've got plenty to learn, but the lesson you need right now, that will take root here." He pointed to her heart, and Rey hesitantly raised a hand to it.

"What will that achieve?"

"Restore your strength of spirit. All through this, you've been carrying yourself like the same scavenger you were on Jakku, fretting about how to preserve our legacy. But the Jedi Order isn't some pristine relic. Through the millennia, it's been broken down and put back together time and again." He smiled gently. "And the result of rebuilding is never quite the same as its old self."

Rey nodded, seeing where this was headed. "So just as it needs rebuilding…"

"You'll have to do the same for yourself." Luke sat down on a gnarled old tree stump, gazing briefly toward the pyramids before his eyes returned to her. "You're not walking the same path as the old Order, Rey. You're a Grey Jedi through and through, and that's the full form you need to grow into. A part of the Galaxy, not holding yourself apart from it. Then you'll be able to stand against the First Order again, and prevail.

"And to that end," he carried on, "you'll set a course tomorrow for Jedha, and travel to the ravine where its Holy City once stood. There, you will descend into the depths and from those depths, you will arise as a Jedi."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 35: Moving Out​

She went to the new General at daybreak. Unsurprisingly, Poe was sceptical, but Rey pressed her case.

"You don't need me to help you organise the Resistance, my command was only joint with Finn in the first place, and I'll be most useful with a proper weapon in my hands. I'll be back within the two weeks and it's not even like the First Order are patrolling near Jedha anymore." Not now that Hux and Ren were calling every squadron to their respective banners. "Please, let me go…"

Poe had held her gaze throughout, arms folded across his chest. And too late, it struck Rey that not once in her argument had she addressed him by rank.

"…General," she added lamely. Kriff…

Poe sighed, looking away and stroking the short beard he'd grown since Omunak. "You're still talking about going to a ruined world on a treasure hunt."

"Poe," Finn interjected. "You don't know how much this matters to Rey."

"And I can't consult the ghost of Luke Skywalker for a second opinion," Poe replied. Then his voice softened, a wry smile finally surfacing on his face. "But I'm very aware that Leia gave her life to bring you back to us, Rey. I don't know the Force, but then that's why I've got you guys." He put a hand on Rey's shoulder. "Go. Take the Falcon and the Scrappers with you."

Chewbacca interjected, thumping his chest. R2 beeped enthusiastically.

Poe laughed, smiling at the Wookie and the droid. "I had assumed you'd both be going with her, so no objections from me. Take off as soon as you're ready, hurry back, and good luck."

Rey bowed her head a little, relieved. "Thank you, General."



Everyone was moving out from Yavin IV, sooner or later. Poe was calling together the entire Resistance for the attack on Gorothad, setting Agnoa as the muster point. So the Yavin IV base was being stripped of everything which could be put to use, and the same process was taking place on other worlds. The Millennium Falcon was just one of a dozen ships taking off and quitting the atmosphere – though Finn knew that it alone was setting course for Jedha.

It unsettled him to see the Falcon leave without him, especially now. He and Rey had been near-inseparable for so long, it was difficult to watch his friend head off to a distant, dangerous system. But Poe had other plans for him and Rose, and there was plenty to keep Finn occupied.

As well as their existing assets, Poe was looking to secure any other support he could. That meant sending out diplomatic missions across the Galaxy, taking advantage of the First Order's sudden distraction. A risky step – the enemy still had eyes and ears out there somewhere – but considering the fight to come, Poe and the rest of the Resistance leadership considered it an acceptable risk.

Rose was among those undertaking the recruitment missions, shepherded by Maz on the Rapscallion.

"They'll make for Gatalena, then head out from there," Poe gestured to the trajectory laid out on a star chart. "Rounding up anyone willing to join."

Finn took it all in, fingers tapping against his chin. "I'd better get packed too."

"Actually…" Finn had already taken one step away. He turned back. Poe looked a little uncomfortable, weighing the words he was about to say. "You won't want to hear this, and I don't want to have to say it."

"It's about Rose, isn't it?" Finn could already guess where this was going, and suddenly his limbs felt much heavier. "You can't let me go with her."

Poe inclined his head. "Not this time, no more than I could have you going to Jedha. After Omunak, we can't risk both our Jedi at once. And besides," he said, his tone lightening in a way that brought Finn up short. "I need my new commander here."

"Commander?"

Then the realisation hit him. Poe's expression was a little amused, but his voice was firm. "You heard. Someone's gotta be responsible for our new friends, and you know how to get the best out of them. And Jannah doesn't want anyone else leading them anyway," he added with a smile.

For a moment, Finn's thoughts were full of that. Commander Finn. Poe's giving me a whole division. Then his mind went back to his girlfriend. "But Rose…"

Poe put a hand on his shoulder. "Rose will be with Maz and her squadron. Can't promise she'll be fine, but there'll be good people looking out for her. Still, you oughta get yourself to the hangar. Go say your farewells, pal."



Poe had already said his goodbyes to Rose and Maz, and Finn found that he'd rather head out to the hangar on his own. Rose was stood by her shuttle, ready to embark.

"There you are," she grinned. Then she frowned. "You're not packed."

"Rose…"

He tried to find the right words, but Rose beat him to it. "Poe needs you to stay."

"Yeah." The word came out as a sigh. "You OK with that, Rose?"

"It's scary," she admitted. "I can't refuse Poe when there's so much riding on this, but… to go out into the Galaxy and pull an army together? From people so frightened they just want to hide forever and hope they just get passed by?"

"Well," he said. "You've done it before. You did it for me, remember." He moved closer. "You took a guy who just days before, was wearing the other side's colours. Who only cared about keeping one friend safe and didn't understand how many people he owed his life to. Who just wanted to run. And you turned him into proud Rebel scum."

Rose laughed a little at that.

"I'm serious." He laid his hands on her shoulders. "You made me care about more than my friends, and even the Resistance. And you know what Jyn Erso knew; this is a regime too evil to not resist. So you're gonna go out there, you're gonna tell the Galaxy like you told me, and our spark will light that fire at long last."

She took his wrists in her hands, eyes brimming. "Aye, Commander."

"I've got you to thank for that." He took a deep breath. "Rose, if I don't see you again, I…"

"I know," she smiled.

He straightened his back a little, still gazing into her eyes. "Well, I'm saying it anyway. I love you."

She threw her arms around him and kissed him. "Love you too." She headed towards the ship, and then turned to face him again. "If you beat us there, Finn, give 'em hell."

He tried to keep a stoic face on. "And if we don't make it to the end, you do the same."

Rose smiled and nodded. Then she was heading up the ramp, before the Spark took wing and disappeared from view. Finn watched all the while, jaw clenched with the effort of keeping his emotions in check.

Stay safe, Rose. Stay safe for me.



Jedha was a name that every child in the Galaxy knew. For thousands of years, it had been the Holy Moon, and given its name to the Jedi. A vital part of the Order's traditions, where Padawans would delve in the caverns for Kyber crystals to power their lightsabers. Later, the Empire had pillaged those same resources for their planet-killer, and tested it on the moon itself.

And, with the destruction of the Holy City, Jedha had become the first place in the Galaxy to suffer the attentions of a Death Star. That attack had left a crater a hundred kilometres across, a wound visible from the first moment the Falcon exited hyperspace. It looked as though a chunk of the moon had simply been excised, though of course Kaydel knew it had been much more violent than that. Their destination lay at the heart of that crater.

Lightning whipped through the thick clouds to the south. This would be a rough flight, and as they entered the atmosphere, Kaydel began to pick up tectonic readings too. The ground wasn't much more stable than the air on Jedha.

"A lost relic of the Jedi's origins," Kuoma said gravely, staring down at the blighted surface. Jedha was the birthplace of his old order; it must hurt to see it like this. "A symbol of the Empire's crimes."

"Old Master Skywalker clearly likes his symbols," Kaydel responded. On her shoulder, Gial whimpered. He didn't like the view any more than she did, and as the ship wobbled again he hopped down into her lap, snuggling against her stomach.

Cradling the Porg, Kaydel leaned forward to look at Rey and realised she wasn't entirely listening to any of them. "You good, Rey?"

Rey glanced back and nodded, flashing her a little smile. But it was only momentary – because this time she wasn't navigating by instruments or sight, at least not mainly.

"It's stronger now," Rey murmured. "The presence here."

Kaydel eyed her nervously. Rey had begun to feel something in the Force even before they left hyperspace. It was like what she'd sensed on Vatel, she claimed, but far stronger, tied to the planet itself.

"But it's still far off," Rey carried on, speaking to no one in particular. "It's… buried." She seemed to snap out of her half-trance, activating a few sensors on the console. Kaydel watched as the surface images resolved into a crevasse, narrow but deep.

A change in the engine's pitch told her that they were landing. She looked again at the crevasse, and then hard at Rey. "You're not serious."

Rey was already undoing her seatbelt, ceding the controls to Chewbacca as the Falcon touched down. She got out of her seat and made an apologetic face. "This is the spot."

Kaydel slumped a little in her seat, still patting Gial. "I hate it when she's serious." Chewie commiserated, while she put her head back and sighed. After a moment she picked Gial up, stood and set him down, and followed Rey into the hold.

She found her already close to ready, pulling on a climbing harness and holstering her blaster. Kaydel went to find the cables she'd need for the descent. The Scrappers – minus Ki'rii, who'd stayed with Poe and Finn as she recovered – had already moved out to inspect the area. "What did the scopes say about depth?"

"Sixty-seven metres."

Kaydel swallowed her protests and picked out a coil accordingly, to go with the pitons. Then she ducked into the armoury for Rey's helmet. "You gonna want your vambraces for the climb, Rey?" She didn't get an answer. "Rey?"

When she turned, what she found broke her heart a little. Rey was staring into the corner where her staff had always been propped. Her hands kept opening and closing helplessly.

Kaydel approached her, embracing her from behind with her free arm. "It still hurts, doesn't it?"

Rey sagged a little, letting a long breath escape her. "It was a part of me, Kaydel," she whispered eventually. "And he just ripped it apart."

Kaydel blinked away tears, resting her forehead against Rey's back. "But you're still here, Rey. And we can rebuild, no matter what Ren thinks about destroying the past."

Rey's hand found hers and squeezed. "Then we shouldn't delay, should we?" Off to her left, R2 beeped in agreement, startling both women before they looked at him and laugh. The old astromech had been keeping such a tactful silence that neither of them had noticed him.

Kaydel let go of Rey and said "So, yes to the vambraces?"

"Yep." Kaydel ducked into Rey's cambin and grabbed them, before they headed out into the open together. Jedha was desolate, but not too bad in terms of temperature, and Kaydel found the winds weren't too strong down here either.

The chasm lay before them, dark and uninviting. Kaydel saw Rey square her shoulders as she eyed it. She did her best to match her, setting her jaw firmly. "We'd better get to work."



They spent an hour scoping the crevasse, finding a point where the pitons would take and where neither the abseil in or the climb out would be too arduous for Rey, before setting the cable. Kuoma and Tannell offered to head down with her, but Rey was adamant about going alone.

"And I know you hate me saying that, all of you." Rey pulled her helmet on, before hooking the cables onto her harness. "But alone is how I need to face whatever's down there."

Kaydel smiled sadly, shaking her head. "Jedi business." She took Rey's face in her hands. "Force be with you, Rey."

Rey leaned in and kissed her, only breaking away after several seconds. Then she leaned back, letting the cable take her weight, and disappeared over the edge.

Gingerly, Kaydel approached and looked down into the pit, watching the light of Rey's torch shrink further and further. Soon enough, she couldn't see it at all.

How strange a burden this was, to fear so much for someone whose power was beyond anything she herself possessed. The fear that had clutched at her on Omunak made itself known again. For all Rey's abilities, she was still mortal. That much was all too apparent now, and Kaydel dreaded the idea that she might never see her again.

Chewbacca put a heavy paw on her shoulder, murmuring gruffly. Kaydel looked into the wise old eyes, which had seen Luke Skywalker undergo so many of his trials, and felt just a little bit better. If Chewbacca, who'd witnessed so much more of the Jedi's story than her, expected Rey to come back intact, maybe Kaydel could believe that too.

She just had to trust that Rey would find what she was looking for.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 36: Descent​

"This is madness." Finn couldn't find any other words for a few moments, staring dumbfounded at the screens on the Solo's bridge. They broadcast images captured by Resistance agents. All of them showed carnage – First Order vessels smashing each other to bits, cities burning and ransacked. No matter that the enemy were doing it to one another, the scale and intensity of the violence was sickening. Especially when he thought of the ordinary people caught up in the crossfire.

He turned to Poe and the other commanders. "How many systems is this? Five?"

"Six." Poe crossed his arms, face grave. "It was seven, but Ren's forces took Vorsk an hour ago. He's moving on to Nirem, and another fleet just began an attack on Vardos."

Those were all names that Finn knew well. The Throne Worlds of the First Order, where they had first raised their banner and begun to rebuild. He'd grown up with propaganda which hailed them as beacons of perfect order and impregnable might. To see them laid low by the First Order's own armies was something he had never imagined.

Lando Calrissian's rich rumble of a voice followed Poe's assessment. "The rest will follow soon. Ren's momentum is still going strong." He frowned as he scrutinised a scrolling log of figures – estimated casualty rates – and glanced up at the screens as another two Star Destroyers ruptured under sustained broadsides. "Everything in his path is burning."

Farrun picked up the clear train of thought. "But it can't last. Gorothad will be a bloody quagmire." The holo display switched to show the infamous Palace of Discipline. "Hux has dug himself right in, and they've been building those defences for three decades. Ren will have to crush everything around the Palace and then crack it open."

"And that's where we need to strike," D'Acy said.

Poe nodded. "We'll be going for the throat. Everything we have, targeting the Palace. Catch Ren, Hux, whichever of them's still alive by then. This is the one chance we've got. Once either man declares victory, we're looking at a united First Order again and the window closes."

Finn found himself noting Poe's changed appearance. He'd swapped his clothes for a uniform more befitting of the Resistance's general, sharply tailored and with a waist-length command cape worn over one shoulder. The stubble had become a short beard. He carried himself differently too, more reserved in a way that couldn't help but remind Finn of Leia and Han.

He also saw the look in Poe's eyes. The people he was looking at might not see it, but Finn saw it. Poe would be aware of it. It was a kind of inverse defiance, daring them to shoot his plan down, almost wanting them to.

But they all gave it the nod. Naturally they had suggestions, refinements, but they accepted the broad thrust of it. It was sound – and as Poe had said, it was their only real shot. Lando mused that this wasn't unlike Endor. The odds weren't good, but the cost of failing to act impelled them to take the shot. C-3PO raised his head for a moment at the mention of odds, but seemed to think better of it.



There was plenty at the micro level to be dealt with – sub-formations, fighter and bomber deployments, feasible sites within the city – but the macro was set. The small-scale matters could and should wait until they'd assembled more of their forces. For now, Poe was willing to leave them to his commanders.

Which meant Finn, among others. So he went over to the renamed Defiance, taking with him the remainder of the troops who'd accompanied them to Tion, and a number of freighter craft.

His new comrades were waiting for him in the hangar. Arron stood flanked by his officers, including Jannah and Jaicyn. The latter's bravery in fighting with Finn hadn't gone unnoticed, it seemed.

"I heard we were being put under your command," Jannah greeted him.

"That's the case. I trust you're cool with it?"

Next to her, Arron smiled. "No argument from any of us, Commander."

"Glad to hear it. Not least because-" he pointed at the ceiling "-I need you steering this thing, Captain. But now…" He motioned, and a couple of hauler trucks, laden with crates, came trundling out of the transports he'd brought over with him. "Now, fighting on Gorothad's gonna be tight and up-close, and we know you guys are trained to handle that. So, I've been given some toys to share."

He pulled back the lid on one of the crates, and Jaicyn whistled. More than a few grins flashed among the assembled troops. Close-combat weapons lay in the crates: vibro-pikes, shock-batons and riot shields.

Jannah took a shield and spear, instantly dropping into a combat posture and miming a few quick stabs. "Ooh, I like these."

What followed were several hours' solid training and drill with the new weapons. Arron had been hard at work consolidating broken companies and squads. The same process was happening throughout the Resistance. Jessika Pava was now formally Black Leader, taking Poe's old X-Wing while her A-Wing went to another pilot. The worst-hit squadrons had been recombined, bringing Black and Blue back to full strength.

So it was with the Defiance's complement. Finn took a number of the toughest troopers for his vanguard units. He paired them with the troops from Poe's division who were handiest in the melee, and they quickly got the measure of one another. Some of them, he reminded himself, had already fought side by side in Ren's attack.

He put himself among them, putting his saber on low power mode and trying to get used to fighting in formation with it. Coordinated assault would be their only real chance against Ren's elite troopers, he understood that now. So he pushed himself hard, finally feeling purpose again in his movements. Despite everything, the lockstep rhythms felt good.

This is my company, he told himself. These are my troops and I belong here, among them.

Poe appeared near the end of the fourth hour, prompting a shout of "General on deck!" and a salute from the division, but he was content to stand back and watch as Finn led the drill. He only approached when they were finished, and the troops took off for the showers and canteens.

He greeted Finn with a smile. "Good workout?"

Finn wiped his forehead of sweat with a towel. "Thorough."

"Sounds right." Poe glanced after the departing troops, then back to Finn. "You think they'll be ready?"

"Yeah." Finn dipped his chin once. "They're as ready as any of us, and more fired up than most. How goes the strategizing?"

" It's going nicely, as is the muster. Another fleet's come in from Mon Cal, and we've gained a handful of ships from elsewhere, but the thrust of the plan is unchanged. We've just gotta get everything tight now. Every ship, every bit of gear, every person running at optimum."

Finn could see where this was going. "You're thinking about Rey again." As if he hadn't been doing so himself. It had been difficult to watch her go again, so soon after they'd nearly lost her. The absence of her and Chewie only added to his worries about Rose.

"Not too much." Poe regarded him. "I trust your judgement, and I still believe in her. What's the old saying, trust the Force?"

"Something like that," Finn smiled. "Well, if we need to talk about anything else, come along to the canteen. So long as I'm not taking you away from your duties." He made to follow the others.

"Finn."

He turned back, and found Poe frowning, clearly weighing up a question. "What's up, pal?"

It took a moment for Poe to answer. When he did the words were soft, but tension ran through every syllable. "It's me that I'm unsure about. I can go over this in my head as many times as I like, rehearsing the arguments. I can hear people like Lando Calrissian tell me that my plan is sound, and I can look at the calculations…" His voice shook a little. "But I've gotta hear it from you, brother. Do you think Leia would trust me to do this?"

Finn nodded, putting his knuckles against Poe's shoulder. "I'm damn sure." He paused a moment, then smiled. "General."

"Thanks. And yeah, the canteen sounds good."

As they set off, Finn shot Poe another look. "So the beard's staying?"

That got him a chuckle, and for a brief moment Poe smiled like his old self. "I feel like it doesn't hurt for the General to look like a grown-up."

Finn snorted. "Hard to argue, when you put it like that…"



There was a strange familiarity, even a comfort, to the abseil. Rey descended quickly into the crevasse, kicking off the rock at points to speed her progress down.

The rock walls closed in around her, slowing her progress as the daylight became a mere crack up above. As if as a counterpoint, she started to find scattered growths of crystal as she went. None of them Kyber – something told her that what she was looking for wouldn't feel so inert – but they caught the light from her helmet and harness and cast it around her.

Finally her feet found the bottom. She pulled the harness off and pointed her torch upwards, quickly flicking it on and off to signal that she'd finished the descent. Kaydel's answer flashed up above, and Rey felt a reassuring little surge in her chest.

The Force pressed harder against her perception down here. It was almost like being in Snoke's presence again, except that this wasn't power concentrated in an individual. This was something impersonal, almost like the power of a river or a sea, closer to Ach-To.

But within that vastness, something else, faint but coming nearer. She turned, drawing her blaster – and found Luke emerging from a tunnel.

She dropped her arms to her sides and bowed. "Master."

Luke inclined his head. "Rey. You found your way here easily enough then?"

Rey nodded. "This… thing is rather hard to ignore. I can feel how close it is, but…" she frowned. "It's not calling, like the cave on your island did. It just is."

"Well, whether it calls or not, that's where we're going." He beckoned her forward, toward the tunnel.



Jedha's mantle must be rife with tunnels like this, she realised. There were stories about that of course – the Alliance heroes Erso and Andor were said to have infiltrated the Holy City that way, and Half-Mad Saw Guerrera had kept up the fight against the Imperial occupiers for years on end. The tunnels she saw were bare, however.

They'd covered a good couple of kilometres now, always heading down, before she felt able to speak again.

"Master Luke, about Ben…"

"Yes, Rey?" His expression was grave.

"I don't know how we can save him now. What's more, I don't know if I want to." Her guilt at the admission must have shown on her face.

Luke walked on in silence for a few moments, weighing up what he was about to say. "You can want to bring someone back, so badly that you'll give anything to achieve it." There was deep sorrow in his voice. "But if that person isn't willing to atone, then you'll find yourself beating at a stone wall. There are…" he sighed, "some awful choices, Rey, which must fall upon a Jedi's shoulders. Yet they have to be made. Tell me, does the name Solo make one person worth more than another?"

"No." It came so easily that it startled her, but she realised it was true. When she thought of all the lives lost to the First Order, the friends she feared for even now – especially now.

"It grieves me that it's come to this, Rey. Don't doubt that." And for a moment, he looked older than he'd ever been in life. "All the more because I had a hand in all this, and now I've left the burden to you. Alas, Leia was right. He is too far gone now."

"And he needs to be stopped. But… how can I face him again? Even with Finn backing me, he's so far beyond our power…"

Luke turned fractionally towards her. "Have you forgotten our first lesson, Rey? What I told you about power? It's not something we simply own. We channel the Force, let it flow through us, but for that we need to open ourselves to it and control that flow. For that, we need to know ourselves and take strength from that." He gave her an encouraging smile. "You'll find the way to defeat Kylo Ren by finding that inner strength again. By becoming something more than you have been, up 'til now."

The crystals were more abundant here, entire veins of ice-blue showing now and becoming more frequent as they pressed on. The feeling was now a constant pressure, making her head throb.

Luke noticed her reaction immediately. "What you feel here," he said, "is a Vergence in the Force, where it seeps through to permeate the material world. Once this made the caverns a sacred place, where pilgrims would come to commune with the Force. But after the Atrocity, it became…"

"Shadowed," Rey finished for him. Just as Kuoma had observed, a trauma of such magnitude left an echo in the Force itself.

Luke nodded gravely. "No longer does it welcome people easily into its embrace."

The tunnel opened up ahead of them, and Rey came to a halt. "This is the threshold."

She looked at Luke, somehow knowing what he was about to tell her. "I can't pass beyond this point, Rey. This challenge is for you to face alone. But-" he nodded to her blaster "-you won't need a weapon in there. What lies ahead is what you take with you." Rey pulled the sidearm from its holster and offered it to him. Luke held up a translucent hand and made a face. "I'm not exactly able to hold it for you, Rey. Though I suppose I can keep an eye on it."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 37: Echoes and Judgement​

The Chancellory of Nirem was broken. The fires had guttered out; there was nothing in the building left to burn.

Ren trudged through ash and snow. Niremon City lay on the coast in the planet's frigid south, and the waves beat endlessly against the cratered sea wall of the Chancellory. He inhaled sullenly through his nostrils, the sound registering to the outside world as a crackle through his helmet's grille, and kicked a Stormtrooper helm out of his way.

"The way to Gorothad is open," Yimur reported. He dragged his sword across the frozen ground, sweeping the weapon up to hold it in front of his helm. "General Engell reports that her forces have taken Vardos and executed the traitor Quinn."

Ren returned his lightsaber to his belt and leaned on a rail, gazing out across the leaden sea. Behind him, the cityscape was pocked with smashed towers and dotted with chunks of defence cruisers which had fallen to earth here.

Snow was falling again, evaporating when it met a lit blade or settling on the corpses of Stormtroopers. Ren caught one with his boot and turned it over. This was one of Hux's, marked by the symbol of the First Order which had been daubed on the armour in red. Ren's troops, in contrast, were now all marked by the saber-sigil, burned onto their chestplates. Through the gaps in the clouds, the Subjugator loomed, casting the city into deep shadow.

"All is in readiness," Verix hissed. Even with a battle newly won, he was ravenous.

Well, that was no great matter. The fighting so far would be nothing to the slaughter which would unfold on Gorothad. And once they had the capital back, the rest of the Galaxy would follow. The Resistance were nothing more than an afterthought now, but he looked forward to dealing with those loose threads. Dameron, Tico, the traitor FN-2817. Those were deaths he would relish, almost as much as Hux's.

I'm close now, Armitage. Can you feel it? Can you feel your death looming over you now?

"Colonel," he growled. He didn't look around. The officer was there, Ren knew he was there, the rest didn't matter. "Complete the salvage operation, then pull the division out."

"Do we leave an occupation force?"

Ren thought. "Just one division. We take the rest – everything we can throw at Gorothad. The people here will need to dig themselves out from under the rubble." A grim smile tugged at his mouth. "That will occupy the civilians until we are done with Hux."



Rey emerged into a cave dominated by crystal formations – huge, grand things that reminded her of the temples she had explored. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, reflecting and refracting the light she turned on them. Her footsteps echoed loudly as she moved to the centre of the cave.

She knew this place. Not by sight, but she remembered her dream on the Falcon and what she had seen during her coma, remembered the feel of that ghostly place. This was what she had felt that night.

Her skin prickled. Having followed the Vergence's trace to its source, she found that it felt like standing under a thundercloud before a storm broke. There was something at the very edge of her hearing, growing until it resolved into something she could actually make out. Like wind, she thought. Or the most distant echo of a scream – many screams.

The light that shone back from the crystals, she realised, was behaving strangely. It didn't die when she turned her torches away. Hesitantly she killed her own lights, and shuddered. The crystals were illuminating themselves with a hard, cold glow.

Her hands felt horribly empty now. She tensed, like a prey animal caught in the open, sensing a predator but unable to pinpoint it. Something seemed to stir in the Force around her, scrutinising her. Rey slowed her breathing, waited.

The wind grew in volume, snatching at her clothes, and she thought she heard words in the sound. Whowhowhowhowho-

With a start she realised that it wasn't a trick of the senses. These were voices – a myriad of overlapping whispers, coalescing to speak as one. Spectral but forceful, it demanded: Who comes?

The cave suddenly felt profoundly cold and drained of colour. The glow built around her, figures forming from the light. Hundreds of them, uniform and anonymous, just as she had seen them in her dream. As one, they began to move, circling around her. They seemed to be cloaked, ether trailing behind them. Then, as in the dream, the figures broke apart and flowed about Rey.

The images came at her in the same jagged flicker as her visions of Ren. A shadow crawling across the sun. Green light which took its place, stabbing down. People gripped by a second of unparalleled terror, crying out against a doom they had no time to understand but which they comprehended instinctively and knew could not be averted. And then those same people annihilated, rendered down to atoms before the eye could even begin to register it. Earth and rock riven. Magma fountaining from the wound in the moon's skin. The tens of thousands of years of accumulated history that had made the Holy City, obliterated like a burned book.

All of this violence, the sheer accumulated trauma of the Atrocity, spilling into the Force where it touched this world, leaving a livid scar.

Rey wheeled, trying to find a focal point in the maelstrom as she felt herself being watched. She was an intruder in the presence of a wounded behemoth which had only just begun to focus upon her. She shrank back, buffeted by the wind which now filled the cave.

Just as the voices had come together, so too the light coalesced, taking new shapes. Great columns of light and vapour reared up from the sea of vapour. They resolved into a dozen towering figures, each enthroned, ringing her.

She found herself gazing into the eyes of huge, smoke-formed faces. They were identical, shorn of any identifying features save for the proud, austere frown that each face wore. Instinctively, she knew what she was facing, whether it came from within her mind or outside. This was a gestalt entity, the collected legacy of the Jedi personified. They loomed above her, scrutinising and judging. A council, she thought.

Who comes? they repeated, the sound coming from all sides and reverberating like thunder. Austere pride and disdain pervaded the manifold voice, the accumulated pride of millennia. And beneath it, like magma under a world's crust, pain.

"Rey." Her voice sounded tiny and insubstantial, under those glowing, scrutinising eyes. She tried to put some strength in it, give it some bite. "Apprentice to Luke Skywalker, the last living Jedi. I seek the legacy of the old Order-" That was all she managed.

Who are you to seek it? The voice thundered, magnified and echoed back at her by the walls of the cave. It rang in her ears and her mind, blotting out all thought. We owe our legacy to no one. Wounded pride bled from every syllable.

"I know the hurt you feel," Rey gasped. "I've seen what the tyrants, the servants of the Dark Side, do. And they will commit those atrocities a thousand times over, condemn the Galaxy to darkness, unless the Jedi stand against them."

You are no inheritor of ours! It felt like a physical blow this time. Rey staggered backwards. You think to take the mantle of Jedi for yourself.

"Not for my-"

The figure opposite Rey lifted an accusing hand and she felt as though an AT-AT had placed its foot on her shoulders. Her legs gave way. It bore down on her, driving her to her knees with its ancient, prideful anger. Hurling at her all the words she had tried to ignore in her head. You are a girl from nowhere - foundling – scavenger – thief. She was battered down by the deluge, face against the dirt.

Behind the thing's fury, she felt the echo of the Atrocity. Emerald light blazed behind her eyes. Rupturing earth boomed in her ears. And she felt the terrified soul-screams of the tens of thousands caught in the destruction. Despite herself, she whimpered.

Not for a moment did the spirits let up. Clawing after relics, the inheritance of the Jedi, walking the impure Grey Path – what are you to us but a pretender? Rey groaned, feeling herself crushed into the weight of the enraged spirits. All thought of crystals was gone from her mind now. All she could think of was the people relying on her, so far away. Finn, Poe, Rose… Kaydel… The voice assailed her again. Why do you presume to matter, to deserve the title of Jedi?

But there it was. Rey closed her eyes, shutting out the light and sound from her mind. She wasn't about to fail again, not when the people she loved needed her. She pressed her hand against the rock and found purchase. She dragged in a breath and, ignoring the sound and fury that had engulfed her, forced herself to speak. "Because… I fight for more than just a legacy."

She felt it then, a hesitance in the spectres. It was slight, but it was there. She pressed on. "Because I've been taught that being a Jedi is about who you fight for and why, not the power you possess or who taught you."

She found the light inside herself again, and it kindled to a blaze. The cacophony still broke against her, but its hold over her was weakened. Pushing against the rocky floor, Rey forced herself to rise. These were only her own fears, thrown back at her, and she denied them their hold on her.

She stood, turning slowly, staring into the eyes of the apparitions. "Because I've learned both your virtues and your mistakes. And now, when people need hope, I'm ready to fight on for freedom in the Galaxy. Whether you approve or not."

And what of the darkness you carry in your heart? The tempest beat against her with renewed strength. Rey skidded backwards, bracing herself against it. The rage that burns in you?

She felt something behind her and turned her head. Beyond the ring of figures there was a shadow in the guise of a woman. It wore Rey's shape, lithe and yet predatory, the malignant potential of the Dark Side radiating from it. She recognised it instinctively: the side of her that told her to take her grief, fear and anger and lash out at the Galaxy which had left her abandoned, forsaken by her own parents.

The shade advanced, but she forced herself to stand her ground and face it. "I know that darkness is in me," she said. It was close enough to touch, and she reached out, putting her hand to its cheek. "I've fought it, but I also know its uses. The Jedi can't just be one side of the coin, just as I can't cut that part of me out. But I can master it." She reached out with her own will, and the shade dissipated at her command.

The phantom council didn't relent, not yet. And how is it your right to decide what the Jedi can and can't be, child? Who chose you, Rey No-One?

But this time she was ready, staring right into the luminous eyes. "No one did. But do you see anyone else stood here, ready to take up your mantle?" She stood tall, and the ghostly face reared up before her, no longer so certain and furious. "And I'm not Rey No-One, not any longer. I'm Rey of Jakku, Rey of the Resistance, Rey of the Jedi!"

The maelstrom around her quietened at that. Now the looks on the faces of the ghostly council were calmer, appraising. Rey stood her ground, waiting for its final judgement.

So you are, came the hushed rumble at last. And the winds swept out to the far ends of the chamber, dispelling the ghostly figures. Rey stumbled briefly, no longer having to brace against the tempest.

The blaze of light died away, leaving the cavern as it had been before. Except for a faint amber glow at its far end. Rey moved toward it, slowly and gingerly at first but with growing confidence and a sudden eagerness. Reaching the wall, she found that it lay behind a sheet of crystal.

Putting a hand to the surface, she felt for cracks and faults before sending a pulse of energy through the thin layer of crystal – and it fell away into dust.

Behind it lay two gems, identical in every way as far as she could tell. Rey scooped them up and held them to her chest, feeling the potential that radiated from them. She felt a smile break out across her face, and almost laughed with elation. Next she took a pouch from her belt and deposited the crystals into it, before running out to find Luke.



"Yellow crystals," Luke mused as he and Rey walked back.

"What do they signify?" Rey asked. She'd come across explanations of what a crystal's shade said about the Jedi who found it – blue for the guardians, green for the spiritualists, purple for the warriors. But yellow was a mystery to her.

Luke gazed upon the crystals in her hand and smiled. "They are the mark of a Jedi Sentinel. A warrior-scholar, a seeker of balance – which, if I'm any judge, is what the Galaxy needs just now. And speaking of which," he said as the crevasse opened up above their heads again. "I'd better not keep you from your friends any longer. Just one thing."

Rey looked at him, expectantly.

"Kaydel," Luke said.

She frowned quizzically at that, feeling just a little defensive. "What about her, Master?"

Luke smiled. "She fits you."

She tried to gauge that expression. "So you're not worried about my going against the Code?"

"What, that old rule?" He threw back his head and laughed. "Do you think that I let it stop me when I was a young, hotshot pilot?" He gathered himself, a warm grin on his face. "Rey, if there's one thing the old Jedi forgot how to do and that the new ought to remember, it's to live a little. Besides, you might need a steadying hand now and again."

She nodded. They were almost at the rockface now, and she returned the crystals to their pouch. Then she cupped her hands to her mouth. "Kaydel! Chewie!"

Their answering shouts rang out above, and a moment later the cable came slithering down. Rey hopped back out of the way as it hit the bottom. Then she hooked her harness onto it and turned back to Luke.

Awkwardly, she bowed, showing him the kind of respect she wished she'd managed when he was alive. "Master Skywalker, I can't thank you enough."

To her surprise, he returned the bow. "I owed you, kid. Now get out there and free this Galaxy." He'd begun to fade out of sight, but his last words followed her up the rock wall. "And remember, the Force will always be with you."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 38: The Weapon of a Jedi​

The clouds over Gorothad were on the verge of bursting, charcoal black and tumescent with the impending storm. It was the middle of the day, but precious little light reached through the dome of the Palace. Almost all the illumination in the strategium came from the strategic holos in front of Hux.

The fleet had been reinforced with the new squadron from Kovant. Thank you very much, Brun. We'll be sure to reimburse the board in due time. Just a pity you didn't pick the right side. If you had, then you might've got to pocket the fee yourself.

Then there were the escapees from the rest of the Throne Worlds, those which had survived Kylo Ren's murderous attentions. They were deployed further out – partly for morale's sake, partly to prevent any material weakness from enfeebling the main body of the fleet – in ad-hoc formations and often heavily scarred by the battles they had escaped.

Many more ships had failed to make it. Necessary sacrifices, Hux told himself. Ren had had to spend lives and resources at every turn. This would be the point where they broke his forces and finally dragged the regicide off his throne once and for all.

Stolan approached. "Every fortress on the planet reports full readiness, sir." Hundreds of thousands of Stormtroopers and Enforcers, standing to attention across the world.

Fleetingly, Hux wondered what Gorothad's civilians must make of all this. He imagined them cowering in their homes; any bunkers had of course been set aside for First Order personnel. They knew that this clash of arms was above them. Theirs was to try not to die, and abase themselves before the victor when he emerged triumphant.

"As it should be," he replied as much to himself as the major, looking over the strategium. In a way, he savoured this. The struggle for the soul of the First Order would be decided not by subterfuge, but in a grand clash of arms. By his intellect and the strength and discipline of his armies, Armitage Hux would win mastery of the Galaxy.

If any of the personnel around him felt nervous, they didn't dare show it. The Stormtroopers - all of them Hux's new Praetorias - stood rigidly to attention. The comms staff busied themselves with passing on directives from the commanders around them. This room was the nerve centre for the entire defence operation. Through this system, Hux saw and controlled all. For instance, he was fully aware of someone approaching the chamber.

The doors opened to admit Torqueda. The crimson-armoured troopers likewise parted to let him through, stepping back into place with mechanical precision. Hux scrutinised him, and noticed that the High Inquisitor looked to be under strain.

"Parnadee is dead," Torqueda bluntly told him. "Ren's forces have taken Nirem and Vardos. They're coming for us."

Hux felt a prickle of irritation. He knew this already, and he disliked how rattled Torqueda seemed. He looked at Stolan and the other officers, and was glad to see that the emotions in their faces mirrored his. "We anticipated this." Hux gestured to the holo. "Ren will dash his armies to pieces on our walls. When the latecomers arrive, they'll see that and fall upon him to prove their loyalty."

"It's not just Ren we have to concern ourselves with." Torqueda was no less animated. Heads were beginning to turn furtively at consoles. "The Resistance are on the move in the Outer and the Mid Rim, and we have no assets to oppose them with."

Stolan sneered. "They are an irrelevance. We've seen the reports – Organa is dead and the boy Dameron is in command. Nothing has changed, we proceed as planned. Crush anything that defies us." The Butcher of Mygeeto was rapidly losing patience.

Still, Torqueda didn't let it go. "We have exposed ourselves here, Hux." The lack of his honorific caught Hux's attention immediately. He glared at Torqueda, waiting for the moment when he realised the error. It didn't come. "The whole Galaxy sees how divided we are – we are vulnerable in this state. The Jedi is alive, the Resistance is gathering its forces and our war has left the door open to them."

"The Resistance," Hux rasped, "are nothing. They have only ever been a rabble, and once we have defeated the regicide they will be eradicated-"

All these long years, Hux hadn't ever seen Torqueda snap before. When it happened, it was quite explosive. "How many times have we told ourselves that lie? And do you really think that if the whole Galaxy sees us looking weak, they won't take advantage?"

Leaving aside the absurdity of the beaten rabble of the Galaxy uniting, just for the moment, Hux took a deep breath. "High Inquisitor, what are you proposing?"

"We can't be caught fighting among ourselves when the Resistance is angling to exploit the situation. Internal struggles must be put on hold."

This was so patently absurd that for a moment, Hux didn't know how to respond. "There can be no making peace with Ren. This is our only chance."

"This is about more than our own power!" Torqueda barked. The Stormtroopers tensed. "The survival of the First Order is at stake. That matters infinitely more than who occupies the throne." He strode to the door. "And if we have to lay down our lives for the First Order to endure, then so be it!"

He didn't even make it across the threshold. Stolan's shots took him in the back, dropping him to the floor. Such a pitiful end for a glittering career, Hux thought.

Torqueda groaned and rolled over to glare up at Hux. He was dying, there was no mistaking that, but he still found the strength to hiss a little more invective. "You fool. You'll… destroy it all."

Hux levelled his own pistol. "I won't let Ren win this, whatever that takes." Torqueda managed one last revolted look before Hux shot him in the heart.

Some part of Hux's mind ventured that maybe the High Inquisitor had had a point. He dismissed the notion, and motioned to the troops. "Detail a squad to dispose of the corpse."

"Sir," Stolan interjected. "Proximity alerts from the fleet."

"So it begins," Hux murmured. Lightning splintered the clouds high above them, drawing eyes upwards. A boom of thunder rolled across the sky, and rain began to beat against the dome. Melodramatic, but appropriate.

The scale of the strategic holos broadened to a to accommodate the dozens of ships now jumping into the system. The battlespace was a hundred kilometres wide, crowded with them. Destroyers, Dreadnoughts – and the Subjugator itself, its dagger-prow unmistakable.

All those ships hung somewhere in space, beyond the storm now breaking across the city. Hundreds of thousands of troops, ready to fight and die by his command. This, the battle to decide once and for all who ruled the Galaxy.

Stolan was already prowling around the console banks, directing the defenders' first moves. Hux raised his face to the sky, staring coldly up at the rain-spattered glass and the leaden clouds. "Come, Ren. Let's finish this."



Far from First Order territory, Mandalore's night was still and quiet. In a circular chamber of coarse stone and wrought-iron, the leaders of the Mandalorian Clans gathered to hear the Resistance's entreaties.

Rose and her fellows waited nervously as the Resistance Ambassador made his case. Their mission to round up support had had some modest success so far; Ciael Nelon of the Uugteen had pledged Akiva's fleet, Ortda Elort had brought the famed Skua Company to their banner and they'd collected several individual vessels along the way. But now they'd come to the legendary warriors of Mandalore. Which was to say that now, they were in for a rather sterner challenge.

She warily eyed the various chieftains, each surrounded by a retinue of their best fighters. To judge by the livery, there must be at least a dozen Clans in attendance.

The Mandalorian warrior culture, scattered during the aftermath of the Clone Wars, had come back together over the decades since the Empire's fall, but had always held themselves apart from the Republic and the Resistance. The clan-leaders had done the Resistance delegation the courtesy of gathering to hear them out, but their silence hadn't been encouraging. Not least as they all retained their distinctive helmets, making them difficult to read.

Now they were starting to talk back and argue among themselves. So far, that was a definite turn for the worse.

A faction in copper and cobalt armour was the most vocally opposed. "So in the name of survival," one of them – a woman by her voice – asked, "you'd have us dash ourselves on the walls of the First Order? Break from the Way that kept us alive all this time?"

"And what would you us do instead?" A male Mandalorian in bright green armour sprang from his seat, agitation plain in his rigid posture. "Do we wait for Kylo Ren to come against us, alone out here?" He somehow managed to glare at his comrades through his visor. "Have we forgotten about what Maul and Palpatine did to us? Do we sit back now and leave ourselves to the same abuses?

His counterpart took a step closer and gestured at the warriors of her clan, all clad in the same cobalt armour. "We've no love for the Empire and its descendants, but-" she put her fists next to her temples, index fingers pointing up "-we know better than to lock horns with a Reek!" A murmur of agreement echoed through the chamber, followed by an angry rumble of dispute. Voices rose.

This was perilous, Rose knew. If the Resistance were turned away here, it would hurt their efforts elsewhere and further imperil Finn and the rest.

The ambassador renewed his efforts. "If the First Order is allowed to recover, your traditions will not save you. All you will do is trade a risk for the certainty of destruction! The slow strangling of your culture, the last Mandalorian dead in some alley on a forgotten world!" His words went largely unheeded amid the swell of angry voices.

He might have carried on, fighting in vain against the increasing tumult, but Rose found her feet carrying her forward.

"Listen to yourselves!" she yelled. Silence fell, leaving her voice to echo from the walls. The Mandalorians and Resistance troops all turned to stare at Rose. Her own vehemence surprised her. She was angry at these people, at these warriors who stood and postured while others suffered for their inaction. "All you've talked about here is your own survival, your strength. What about the rest of the Galaxy? They need people like you to stand up and fight. If you act, they can be saved. The people of this Galaxy need you - or is the courage of Mandalore all talk?"

The shouting erupted again, but a dry voice emanated from the back of the chamber and cut through the noise. "We said we would hear them out." The Mandalorians fell silent, swivelling to see who had interrupted. Rose leaned sideways, trying to catch a glimpse.

A warrior in reddened armour , who hadn't yet spoken or even stirred so far, came to his feet. It was just a slight movement, but it drew every eye to him. The centre of gravity in the room seemed to alter, so effortlessly did this man command attention.

The cloak which had mantled him slipped back, revealing a hilt of black metal at his belt. Rose felt a little shiver at the mere sight. She recognised the weapon immediately – it figured in a dozen stories from the Clone Wars and more since then. The legendary darksaber.

The bearer's hands did not move toward the weapon, however, instead rising to remove his helmet. The assembled Mandalorians drew back as one when it came free, and a heavily tanned, lined face was revealed.

The man met the gazes of his fellows, waiting to see if any challenge would meet him. None came. His beard was iron-grey, clipped short and neat, but his eyes were bright beneath a heavy brow. Quiet command radiated from him. There was no bombast, no need to assert any credentials.

He turned to the ambassador. "We promised to listen, but I think you have said your piece."

The ambassador took it well, for what it was worth. Rose and the others waited, all of them tense.

The old warrior addressed the whole delegation, his lessers parting before him. "I am a Mandalorian, and a Mandalorian is a warrior. I'll hear a diplomat out, but I will not be swayed by one. Did the Resistance send a soldier with their delegation? Anyone who's actually had the nerve to face the First Order? If you have, then let's hear their words. Those, I will heed." His eyes alighted on Rose. "What about you? You look like you've something more to say."

Rose forced herself to keep staring back, despite the eyes of every Mandalorian which were now turned upon her. Her hand found and closed around her crescent medallion. Paige would want you to do this, and she'd tell you that you can pull it off. Finn, Poe and all the rest believe it too.

"Yes." She took a step forward. "Yes I have."



The sun hung low in the evening sky, spilling golden light over the Agnoan sea. Floating a little way off the sand, basking in the warm glow, Rey meditated.

"Breathe. Just... breathe..."

She'd come away from the base, which bustled just as much as the one on Yavin IV. Even more, perhaps - Poe had set Agnoa as the muster point, and now the Resistance fleet was gathering on and above the planet. Finn, Poe and Rose were yet to arrive, still rounding up more ships and troops to built a force which could attack the heart of First Order territory. It was only going to get busier, and already it was hard to hear anything over the rumble of landers moving between the surface and the fleet.

So Rey had made for the beach. The salt in the air and the rhythm of the ocean drowned out the noise from the base and soothed her, reminding her of D'Qar. Breathing deeply and slowly she centred herself, letting the sound of the waves fill her ears, riding out the unrest in her heart.

Slowly, she centred herself. Then she reached out for the components which lay on a cloth beside her.

Earlier, in her cabin, she had rummaged around for tools, finding a hand-welder, plasma cutter and goggles in the lower draws. Together with some power cells and other necessary parts, she'd gathered everything up in a tray. Then she went back to the upper drawer, where the broken Skywalker saber lay.

For a good long while she had regarded it, feeling the tumult which threatened to reawaken and unbalance her again. Enough. She picked the two halves out of the draw and left the cabin.

In the hold, she had hunkered down on and got to work. Chewbacca and R2-D2, as she'd known they would, had offered to help out with the assembly. But this was something Rey wanted – needed, really – to do for herself. Not to mention the risk that if she got the later parts of the process wrong, there could very easily be an explosion. This was work so delicate that you needed a connection to the Force in order to avoid disaster.

Once she'd committed to it, stripping the internals out of the saber was just a matter of precision and care. To disassemble what was left of her staff, however, was harder, and she'd felt a sharp pang as she undid the first screw. It had been an extension of herself for a decade, growing and evolving with her as she added and replaced parts. An unfailing tool, the means by which she'd protected herself and, when she felt able, stood up for others.

And yet there was no alternative. The staff was broken. She couldn't put it back together as it had been, any more than she could restore herself to the scavenger girl on Jakku. No, this was the way forward. Take the pieces of the past and build something new from them.

The process had taken time. It was delicate work, stripping out the wiring from the shock-generator and assembling it into a new pattern, which was then threaded through the haft she was piecing back together. Her weapon would have a longer hilt than most, to accommodate the twin crystals and power cells. A twin-bladed saberstaff. Despite her nerves, she smiled at the very idea.

She'd taken up the welder, going over the parts which had come from Luke's saber to darken the metal, so it matched the staff.

The time had come to assemble the weapon, and she couldn't do that aboard the Falcon. That had been clear from reading the old texts. This process included the crucial step, the point where she integrated the Kyber crystals into the saber. Once that was done, the real moment of truth would come. Either the weapon would ignite properly, or the energies inside would erupt. Such an outcome would likely kill her.

Which would be bad enough without blowing the Falcon up too. Somehow, that thought came to her in Han's gruff voice, and she let out a snort of amusement. No arguing with that logic.

Hence she'd set off for the sea, bringing the pieces down to the sand where she would carry out this last step. Kaydel, Chewie and the Scrappers had wanted to come too, but Rey had secured promises that they would watch from a safe distance. Now, with the sun finally dipping below the horizon, Rey knew it was time.

She knelt and closed her eyes. With the Force, she reached out, letting her mind's touch encompass the components. See how they will connect. See not the pieces, but the entire saber. The components – the saber-to-be, she corrected herself - rose into the air, falling into alignment. The crystals settled in their sockets, power cells and circuity met and potential thrummed through the weapon. Just as the texts had said, it didn't feel like something she was constructing, but rather a single entity assuming its ordained shape.

Finally she felt for any flaws which escaped her sight, letting her consciousness roam within the mechanisms and finally the crystals themselves, attuning them and aligning them. One slip now, and all this would have been for nothing.

Letting the Force flow through her, she found the alignment and in spite of her nerves, she smiled and extended her hands, palms up.

The saber responded to her call, floating gently into her grasp. Gingerly, she felt for the two power studs, took a deep breath, and pressed them.

Amber light bloomed through her eyelids. After a few moments she dared to look, and her heart swelled as she beheld the finished weapon. Two yellow blades lit the beach around her.

She got to her feet, testing the weight and feel, finding that this felt right in a way that not even the Skywalker saber had before.

For a moment, she held still. But the new saber – her saber – demanded to be swung and spun, to cut the air with its hum and whir. So she gave it an experimental twirl. And another. And then the kind of flurry she used to practice with her staff.

As she went, she found herself moving more quickly, adding flourishes. Before she knew it she was spinning, dancing as her laughter echoed across the beach. Moving at the centre of a whirl of yellow light, kicking up sand.

She kept it up until the sun began to sink into the ocean. Finally she spun to a halt, panting, and cheers echoed down to her. Turning to face the cliff, she saw her friends and others – many others, lining the horizon.

Not even a week ago, a moment like that would have been too much for Rey. Now, however, she brandished the saber triumphantly, grinning up at them all.



A few of them were still waiting when she traipsed back up the track to the fields.

"So," Kaydel smiled when she reached them. "You're ready?"

Rey nodded vigorously. "Very."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 39: Lighting the Fire​

Above Gorothad there was no exchange of terms or threats, no promise of dire retribution. No need for any of that. Ren's fleet began to move the second all his ships were out of hyperspace, advancing despite the salvos that the defenders hurled at them and sacrificing ships to soak up the onslaught. They didn't fire back yet, devoting all their power to the forward shields.

Thundering into range, the fleet turned to present broadsides and finally they returned fire. A great wave of plasma and torpedoes swept across the gulf, breaking across the defenders' shields in a cascade of light. Squadrons of TIE Fighters and Bombers followed by the thousand, screaming in as their counterparts moved to intercept. Their vicious dance began, spiralling around the defending Star Destroyers and stations as the exchange of cannon fire ripped through space.

Kylo Ren stalked the Subjugator's bridge, snarling orders and exhorting his forces to new heights of slaughter, just as Hux did in the Palace's strategium. Two men, bent upon one another's death and each willing to tear through whatever stood between them.

The Unremitting and the Subjugator both consigned vessels to destruction with every broadside. Shields collapsed. Armour melted under dousings of plasma and split when laser beams found their targets. Torpedoes burrowed into metal plates and detonated, leaving gaping wounds that bled air and molten metal.

A Dreadnought's autocannons overwhelmed a defence station's shields and blew it apart, the explosion consuming two Maxima-class heavy cruisers. Minutes later, the Dreadnought perished under the guns of the Unremitting and two more stations, which lanced it through again and again with laser beams. Fire wept from the many gashes in its hull, until the burned-out shell was left to drift with the dozens of other ruined ships, tumbling directionless through space.

Then the Subjugator came for its opposite number, flanked by its lessers and all their guns blazing away at the Unremitting. The defending flagship's crew replied with all the firepower they could muster, but nothing in Gorothad's orbit was a match for the Subjugator. The mighty autocannons spoke, and the Unremitting's shields were shredded like paper. Its decametre-thick armour kept it from coming apart entirely, but that only served to prolong its agony. The Subjugator's escorts moved in, carving strips of plating away from the metal bones. Floors and ceilings collapsed within, chambers were ripped open and scoured by the vacuum. Finally the Subjugator fired again into the exposed heart of its counterpart and the Unremitting disintegrated, consumed by its own reactor fires.

Ren watched from his bridge, teeth bared. Far below Hux stared grimly at the holos. The space battle was decided, at least until the latecoming fleets arrived. Just what they would do when they did arrive, both warlords knew, would depend on the next phase of the conflict. For now came the battle on the surface.



Almost the entire Resistance fleet hung above Agnoa as the Millennium Falcon and the last transports climbed into the sky. It was the largest flotilla Rey had ever seen, though she had to remind herself that the enemy would have considerably more. Even so, this was awe-inspiring.

Chewbacca made a burbling growl next to her, sounding impressed.

"Bigger than the Rebel fleet at Endor?" Rey said. She tilted her head, eyes raking the crowded starfield. "Actually, I can believe that." It was a tribute to the hard work of Poe and his commanders, rallying the Resistance's full strength and gathering any new allies they could find. They'd assembled a fleet which might just be able to prevail against the First Order ships at Gorothad.

From the Falcon's cockpit, she counted thirty-five ships. They were impressively varied – she recognised Mon Calamari, Sullustan and Corellian designs, vessels from Comenor and Sluis Van, all united under the Resistance's banner. But there was one ship she kept looking for...

"Any sign of the Rapscallion?" She asked Kaydel.

Kaydel frowned, a strained little expression. "No."

Rey suppressed a worried sigh. Be safe out there, Rose.

Three more huge battleships lay close to the Solo. One was a craggy Corellian giant named the Aldera, all slabbed armour plating and thickets of cannons. The other had the bulbous look of a Mon Calamari ship – that must be the Ackbar. The third new addition was immediately recognisable – it had the outline of a Star Destroyer, but on closer inspection it had a certain elegance that marked it apart from First Order designs. This was the Emancipator, flagship of Lando Calrissian.

But the Falcon made for the Solo, at the very heart of the formation.



Finn was waiting for them in the hangar, already armoured. He'd arrived hours earlier and was stood with Jannah and a squad of her troopers, plus some of the troops who'd accompanied them into the Tion Sector.

To judge from Jannah's squad, the Defiance's crew had all defaced their armour just as Finn had his. Some of them had gained new helmets, while others had modified their old ones to make them open-faced. And when they turned to greet the newcomers, Rey saw they'd painted the Resistance's symbol on the bare metal of their breastplates and shields.

They exchanged salutes before Rey walked over and hugged Finn. When they broke apart, Finn noticed her looking at the newly altered armour. He smiled, tapping his knuckles against his chest. "Not subtle I know, but Jannah and Jaicyn insisted. You're looking at Phoenix Company."

"So you've gone all-in with on-the-nose," Kaydel observed.

Jannah laughed. "It's not time for subtlety anymore. We're attacking the First Order's capital world, right?"

Rey joined in that laugh as Kaydel shrugged and nodded. "I knew I liked you lot. And it's a strong look," she added. Scanning the busy hangar, she frowned. "I didn't see Maz's ship. Is Rose not back yet?"

Finn turned serious. "She's out there somewhere, but we got a message a day ago to say she and Maz won't make the rendezvous. They'll join us at Gorothad with anyone they manage to rally." He left unsaid the words if they make it there.

Rey knew he was thinking them though, and took hold of his arm. "They'll make it, Finn."

He nodded, dipping his chin again to acknowledge Kaydel's encouraging smile. "Thanks, guys. In the meantime, let's go find our General."



Rey had slung a belt over her armour, across one shoulder. Her saber hooked onto it, its weight reminding her of the staff just enough to feel comforting. Under the Resistance green of the armour, her robes were a mix of black, white and grey.

"You're walking like you used to," Finn observed as they made their way to the bridge. "Good to have you back, Rey."

She punched him lightly on the arm. "You're going soft, friend."

"Just don't tell the troops. And remember," he added with a gentle prod of his elbow before tapping the stripes on his arm, "Captain. I outrank you now. Wouldn't do to assault a senior officer."

They both managed to keep a straight face for about five seconds.

They were still waiting on people, but already the bridge thronged with personnel. Pilots, soldiers, technicians. Heads turned when the group entered, and more followed. Eyes lingered on Finn and Rey's lightsabers, and the whisper ran through the space. The Jedi lived.

But aside from a few familiar faces, they kept their distance, and Rey had a chance to study the groups around them. The pilots were nearest, clustered around their captains. Then there were the ground units in their varied liveries. Not for the first time, Rey thought it was just as well that their enemy were so uniform. Sometimes it was the only thing that let the Resistance's soldiers reliably recognise one another.

The notorious and beloved Shriv Suurgav had arrived, his Dross Squadron easily recognisable as the scruffiest troops on the ship. He waved cheerily as they passed; in all his years of fighting for the Rebellion and Resistance, Shriv had been known to salute all of three superiors. Now four, it seemed, as he directed one to the new general.

Poe stood on a dais at the centre with D'Acy and Farrun, the three of them orchestrating the fleet as it moved into formation. He saluted on seeing Rey, and she returned it with a smile.

Finn motioned for Rey and the others to hold back – no interrupting the general. So they joined Snap, Jess and the other pilots and waited, quietly watching the bridge fill up around them and the ships outside move into place. A great arrowhead formation came together on the holo display. The Defiance took its place at the very tip, and Rey saw the satisfied look on Finn's face at that.

"While Poe's busy," Finn said, "I'll walk you through our role in the attack."

Rey regarded him curiously, following him to an unused console. "So you've had a hand in the planning? I wondered."

"More than just a hand," he grinned, bringing up a holomap of the First Order citadel and its surroundings. This part of the operation is all me." He tapped his temple.

"Then walk us through it, Commander," prodded Kaydel.

Finn's smile broadened, and he hit another key on the console. Several patches on the display glowed blue. "These are projected landing sites close to the Palace of Discipline. They're likely to be defended, but we have the firepower to clear them."

"And anything else would mean we have to cover a lot more ground," Jannah put in.

"How many soldiers will we have?" Rey asked. "A thousand?"

"Half that again, all told. Us and the Defiance's complement, plus our companies from the Tion mission. All told we'll have ten thousand moving on the Palace, against roughly as many Stormtroopers by our projections."

Kaydel made a face. "That could vary a lot depending on how Kylo's fight against Hux goes. And Kylo is the objective?" A startlingly fierce look came into her eyes.

"Him and the Palace both. If at all possible, I'll engage him first. If he doesn't know we've still got you, Rey, best we keep it that way."

Rey nodded. "Element of surprise. Plus the look on his face should be priceless." She reached for the console and zoomed in on the plaza. "Once he knows we're coming, he won't stay put. He might even break off the fight with Hux to come face us."

"That's our assumption too," Jannah put in.

Finn nodded. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that they'd just kill each other. Then again," he added, "I think I'd feel cheated if it went that way. Anyway, the plan. Sound good?"

Rey put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm on board with it, Commander. It's a good plan."

"I think…" Kaydel said, watching the last few squadrons assume their positions, "that's us ready to go. Pending rhetoric."

Finn nodded toward the entrance, seeing Ace Squadron file in with Kazuda Xiono and hasten over to them. "And the last few attendees." He deactivated the holo.

Admiral Calrissian sauntered onto the bridge at the head of the last few commanders. His uniform was as immaculate as ever, a deep green cape thrown over one shoulder. He greeted them warmly, and made briskly for the command dais, at whose foot Poe stood.

C-3PO too approached Poe. Resistance techs were wiring other protocol droids up to communication units. A team of engineers stood ready to do the same for Threepio, but the old golden droid clearly had something to say to Poe. "It would be the highest honour to translate and convey your words…" he gave an awkward salute. "General Dameron."

There was a time, Rey thought, when Poe wouldn't have cared for that sentiment. But now he inclined his head and placed a hand on the venerable droid's shoulder. "Thank you, Threepio." Then he took his place at the centre of the room.

Rey felt a gentle blush of pride, seeing her friend ascend the dais. For Finn, Kaydel and Poe's old pilot crews, it must be even more heartening. Sure enough, when she risked a look, they were all beaming. Their expressions turned sombre, however, as the bridge went quiet.

Poe cleared his throat, visibly steeling himself, and began to speak. "People of the Galaxy. This is General Poe Dameron of the Resistance. I'm sure you've seen the holo-feeds and you know that right now, the First Order is fighting itself. Gorothad burns in the fires of civil war. Kylo Ren and Hux are scrapping over who gets to sit on the throne and rule over all of us. Because they have written us off. Not just the Resistance, but everyone in the Galaxy who isn't them.

"These are the people who would deny us all a destiny of our own choosing. Prefer one of our would-be Supreme Leaders, or neither?" he asked. "Not your call to make, they say. And they tell us that their way of doing things will guarantee order, that tyranny is the only way for the Galaxy to know peace?" He gestured to the holo-feeds of First Order ships fighting in orbit and worlds burning. "Well look at them now! Smashing their own cities down to lord it over the debris, not a damn given for anyone who gets in their way – that is the true face of the First Order."

Kaydel took hold of Rey's left hand, gripping tightly. Rey squeezed back, shooting a glance at her and seeing that Kaydel was almost vibrating on the spot. Around them, people were nodding, murmuring their assent.



It was the same on every other ship across the fleet, and beyond. The message spread, and found an audience ready to hear it. Across the Galaxy, radios were tuned to the Resistance's frequency. From Utapau to Coruscant to Kashyyk, people listened tremulously, daring to hope.



Poe's voice shook with emotion. "Enough heroes have given their lives for us to get this far. Organa, Solo, Ackbar, Holdo, Skywalker and a million others." Each name elicited a faint murmur from the crowd. "The tyrants have turned their backs on us because they think we're nobodies." Poe turned away, dropping his voice and causing them all to lean in a little. "And you know what that tells me, my friends?"

He wheeled around. "It tells me that they don't know their damn history! Name any hero of the Resistance or the Rebellion, it's a fair bet you're talking about someone who started out as a nobody. Started as a nobody and yet, changed the course of the Galaxy. This is what the First Order has forgotten!"

Rey felt it then. It was like an electric charge running through the assembled rebels. She let her awareness expand, drifting beyond the flagship, and felt it in the crews of every other vessel. And it was there too, in her quickening heartbeat.

Poe took a breath, spoke more quietly but no less firmly. "My friends, a nobody should never be underestimated. A nobody can become anyone, anything from a soldier to a strategist to a Jedi. No matter our species, no matter where we came from, the potential is in all of us. This is what the First Order try to forget… but they still remember enough to fear it. A nobody is a spark, and that spark can set the First Order to burn." His burning gaze swept over the crowd, and now his words came as a challenge. "So let's remind them, shall we?"

Just a slightest moment of silence met him. Then a cheer burst from every throat. Rey thrust her saber into the air, followed by Finn's and then the Scrappers' weapons. Fists flew up, the cheer swelling.

On the dais, Poe almost took a step back before he caught himself, a look of fierce determination settling on his face. As the cheering died away he held up his hand and spoke again. "We know our mission, we know our duty. So let's not waste any time. The Resistance marches – to Gorothad!"

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 40: The Siege of Gorothad​

For two days, Kylo Ren's forces had laid brutal siege to Gorothad as the storms raged across the planet. From orbit, entire districts could be seen blazing on the surface. Whole legions of Stormtroopers were dead on either side, and fortresses across the world-city burned. Now, as the second day drew to a close and the last of the rains began to peter out, the erstwhile Supreme Leader finally brought his forces to the Palace of Discipline.

TIE fighters and bombers swarmed closely enough to darken whole patches of the sky, raining down fire on and around the Palace. They converged on the great structure, raking the great defence lasers and any shield generators they could reach. Scores were caught by ground fire or defending squadrons, but that too suited Ren's purposes. Every shot and missile which found a TIE was one that would not find another, less expendable target. Like the transports, from the small squad-carriers to the great blocky ships which now came down on the plaza, the impact of their landing hard enough to shake the building's very foundations.

Hux had deployed tanks and walkers to the plaza along with thousands of Stormtroopers. They were well-trained and fully equipped, but even they quailed when the bulk landers smashed down and their cavernous hatches opened. And no wonder; they knew what those things carried. A heavy metal foot emerged from the first transport and crunched down on the stone of the plaza. Then another, and an enormous head bedecked with cannons thrust itself into the light. The other transports opened in turn, and with a growl of servos, the beasts of adamantine stepped out.

These were AT-M6s, the dreaded Gorilla Walkers which dwarfed even AT-ATs. If one had looked down at the plaza from above, they would see the defending lines contract slightly as the Gorillas emerged from their transports. With a bestial growl of servos, the monstrous machines hauled themselves into the open, rearing up before their cannons began blazing.

Under that weight of fire, the line collapsed. The AT-MAs, though they were giants in their own right, were outmatched by these goliaths. They buckled and fell even as they fired back. Tanks and lesser walkers were tossed into the air like toys when they were hit, shattered and aflame. Infantry were vaporised where their stood, the stone and rockcrete under their feet pulverised and scorched.

The remaining guns on the walls turned to the new threat, and all around the Palace the night was ripped apart by the searing lights of an artillery duel. Armour ran molten and tore open under the bombardment, just as the hunched giants' volleys cratered the walls before them and reduced the cannons to wreckage. One quaked and then fell as its limbs were cut out from beneath it. Another stood firm until a missile delved into its engine compartments and disembowelled it in a gout of fire and metal.

Smoke mantled the upper tiers of the city, twisting in the hot winds and illuminated by the flames which burned in the depths beneath the towers. Wreckage and debris tumbled from on high, doing even more damage on the way down. Civilians took shelter as best they could, cowering from the onslaught that their overlords had unleashed on them. The First Order was at war with itself, and the Force help anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the middle.

But they too had heard General Dameron's address. Their anger at the First Order had been stewing for a long time, and now that the tyrants were killing them with simple carelessness, they had had enough.

Here and there, someone found a discarded blaster, or cast around to find something else which could serve as a weapon. And there were Stormtroopers too, on both sides of the battle, who found themselves first sidling away and then running, throwing off their helmets as they made for the lower levels, trying to put distance between them and the madness.

Neither Ren nor Hux heeded any of that, fixated on one another. The battle raged, only abating as the guns were silenced. The last of the Gorilla Walkers perished under the fire of the Palace's cannons, their armour stripped away and their metal bones finally giving out. But in the last moments of their suicidal attack, their fire tore the gates open, leaving only rubble and a gaping hole in the once polished stone. The remaining turrets were easy prey for Ren's bomber squadrons.

Inside the strategium, Hux gave a nod and the heavy blast doors locked into place. He pressed the master comms button, forcing himself to say the words. "All units, deploy to repel the invaders."

Red-armoured troopers took up position within the chamber and without, covering the doors. Closer to the breach, thousands of his soldiers would be assembling. Hux waited for the next move, feeling sick to his stomach.



The Millennium Falcon, sat on the Vehement's flight deck, thronged again. Rey had to weave through the press of bodies to reach the armoury, once Lando Calrissian's wardrobe. The remaining Scrappers greeted her with rough, cheery embraces and claps on the shoulder. Ki'rii, now fully geared up, hugged her tightly.

"Ready, Captain?" she asked.

"As much as I'll ever be, Ki'rii. It's good to have you back with us."

She could hardly have asked for a better crew. Finn was riding with Jannah and her squads, aboard one of the gunships. Poe wasn't about to risk both Jedi aboard a single craft. But the Falcon had gained a couple of dozen troops besides the Scrappers, crammed into the hold. They would be in the vanguard with Phoenix Company, the very tip of the spear. The second they were in range of Gorothad, their planetfall operation would begin.

They'd need just about everyone they had for this, regular soldiers or not. So Kaydel joined them, pulling on the few spare pieces of armour that Rey had found her.

Rey, already kitted out, rifled through cases and crates, setting aside the empty ones while Kaydel fiddled with the straps. To her surprise, she felt less frightened for her partner than she did proud of her. Now more than ever, Kaydel reminded her of the old pictures she'd seen of Leia, and perhaps as much as anything, that made the armour look right on her.

Kaydel caught Rey looking and struck a pose; blaster up, hip cocked and one eyebrow much the same. "How do I look?"

Rey picked up Kaydel's helmet and set it on her head. "Dashing," she declared, doing up the strap, then tucked a couple of fingers under Kaydel's chin and lifted it to kiss her. "I'm glad you're with me, Kaydel."

"Same here."

The deck kicked under their feet – the fleet was entering hyperspace. They both exhaled – only then realising they'd been holding their breath.

Chewbacca trudged over, rumbling an affirmation that he too was glad to have them both aboard, and pulled the two women into a hug.

"Falcon," Poe's voice came faintly from the radio at Rey's belt. Then a tolerant sigh when they failed to answer. "Rey, put your girlfriend down for a moment and tell me you're ready."

Rey freed an arm, reached down and retrieved it. "Not my fault this time, General." Chewbacca let them both go. "We're prepped." They moved to the cockpit, finding Gial already in his favourite seat.

"Then let's go and give the tyrants what's coming to them."



The Palace was breached. With the gates smashed and the turrets silenced, Ren's shuttle finally soared down, flanked by the gunships which carried his finest divisions. They grounded amongst the burning wreckage of the first waves, the surviving companies regrouping and reforming for the next push. Beyond the gates, Hux's troops would be doing the same.

Ren emerged onto the ravaged plaza, hot winds snatching at his cloak. The surface was gouged and carpeted with corpses and burned-out war machines. The Knights and Death Troopers took the obstacles in their stride, as Ren threw back his head and bellowed the challenge as they made for the gap in the walls. "Hux!"

He was first through the breach, silhouetted darkly against the burning threshold. Shouts heralded his coming, and beneath his mask, he smiled at the fear he heard in the voices. Stormtroopers packed the hall beyond, and he raised his saber to deflect the wave of laser fire which met him.

He roared again, his helmet's speaker-grille twisting the sound so that it verged on the inhuman. "HUX!"

Volleys from his legionaries snapped over his head as he and the Knights charged into the midst of their enemies. Ren threw up his hand and Stormtroopers were swept off their feet, smacking into comrades or crunching into the walls. Around them, the shield wall of the Death Troopers bore down upon the defenders and smashed into their ranks.

The line crumbled. The Supreme Leader and his troops were in their midst and killing already, stabbing down into the chests of fallen troopers and tearing into those on their feet. Ren snarled and barked as he ripped through the opposition. His blood roared in his ears like artillery, the power of the Dark Side seething through him. He was its conduit – no, its master, channelling all his rage and all the pain and anguish of his enemies, drawing power from it. He felt their fear and gorged upon it.

All was anarchy. The statues of Imperial martyrs and First Order heroes, even Snoke's likeness at the heart of the chamber, were soon pocked and disfigured by stray shots and blasts. Wilhuff Tarkin's statue fractured at the knees, leaving the stone figure to topple onto a mass of Hux's troops and crush them.

An Executioner came for Ren with an electro-axe. Jhorush moved to intercept, easily parrying the clumsy weapon and cleaving the trooper's chest with his sword. But the blade snagged as the Executioner went limp, and the time Jhorush took to pull it free left him exposed. A squad of enemy troops raised their blasters and caught him in a fusillade of shots. Jhorush fell, his chest a mess of fiery craters.

His killers didn't get another such victory. Ren and the other Knights tore into them, hacking limbs and heads away. Agonised screams rose from the melee, sometimes quickly cut off and sometimes carrying on until they were silenced.

I hope you hear all of this, Hux, Ren thought. I'll do this to everyone who stands between me and my vengeance. The Ren is not denied. The Supreme Leader is not denied.

On Ren went, through the outer precincts as time ceased to hold any meaning for him. There was only the next enemy, the next kill, the next obstacle between him and Hux. As they penetrated deeper, they found themselves fighting through Hux's crack troops. The Stormtroopers who barred his path were now clad in bright red armour. New Praetorians, he surmised, as conceived with Hux's singular lack of imagination.

The fighting reached a new pitch, the red legion against the black. Glancing shots beat against Ren's helmet, shattering one of the lenses. He ripped it free of his head, clubbing one opponent with it before he cast it away and tore into the next squad.

The Knights and spear-carrying Death Troopers ripped into their counterparts in red, blades jabbing at exposed joints. But Hux's troops were almost their equal in skill and equipment, and they had the Palace's automated weapons systems on their side as well. Heavy cannons opened up on the invaders just as their weapons raked the halls in reply. The soldiers of the 66th fell in greater numbers. Even the brutal warplate of the heavy weapons squads couldn't hold out forever against the onslaught.

Nor that of the Knights. Nagai fell, bludgeoned with shock-mauls and pierced with vibro-spears, still slashing at his enemies as he fell. His brothers fell upon the killers and hacked them limb from limb.

The invaders pressed on. At some point an Enforcer reached Ren in the scrum and hammered a truncheon into his side. Ren staggered, feeling the armour crack along with two ribs under it. The Enforcer halted, held in place by the press of bodies, and for a second they stared at one another.

"Oww," Ren growled. Then he slammed the trooper back and cut him in half.

His troops poured into the Palace now, locking down precincts with well-drilled precision and killing anyone who hindered them. A hundred firefights raged within the vast building. Droids, menials and servants found themselves caught in the crossfire and fled as their own masters abruptly found their hands full. They barricaded themselves in small rooms or made for the storage chambers beneath the Palace, seeking any shelter they could find.

As before, Ren paid no attention to their plight. They were beneath him, and he had just one objective. He fought on, never deviating from his hunt.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 41: Black on Red​

Pryde strode the bridge of the Subjugator, watching Hux's diehards try desperately to take back the space above the planet. Several small fleets had come screaming in, desperately trying to add their strength to the usurper's defence.

Idly, Pryde wondered what could drive them to such madness. Surely it couldn't just be the promise of power and riches. Nor could it be any strength of personality on Hux's part – that weaselly little bastard was the last man who came to mind when Pryde thought of charisma. No, it must be the same strange kind of fanaticism that Hux subscribed to – a belief not in true power but in submission to some nebulous precision and commitment to bland order.

Fools. Anyone who understood the Empire's history and indeed that of other past empires would understand that for such a regime to endure and hold the Galaxy's leash, it must have the Dark Side at its disposal. Else the Force became the natural ally of the disruptive underdog. As for those who active stood in the way of the Dark Side… well, the Battle of Gorothad would no doubt be instructive for future generations. Pryde imagined the lesson would be somewhat lost on the fools here.

Still they came on, claiming a few victims, but their numbers were diminishing.

"Admiral Griss," Pryde said. "What are our current losses?"

"Just over one third, sir."

"Tolerable." He eyed the great field of wreckage which had been Hux's defence fleet, beyond the starboard viewports. Yes, a third was a price quite worth paying to strip this world of its defences. When this was done, they would rebuild it all, greater still. Never again would the rule of Kylo Ren be challenged. "The real latecomers will see sense when they arrive, and fall in line. Hux never reckoned with the might of the true Supreme Leader."

And just as well, because with the damage to the fleet, those stragglers would be the ones sent to reassert the First Order's control of the Galaxy. At least they would have plenty of motivation to do it properly and demonstrate their loyalty. The alternative was to end up like those who had taken Hux's side in the conflict.

"Anticlimactic, one might say," he mused to his assembled officers, looking out over the expanse of the Subjugator. "But every great struggle needs its epilogue. And there will be more to come. We purify Gorothad today, tomorrow the Galaxy." A cough turned him about. "What?"

"Allegiant General," Griss began, sounding mildly bemused. "We have an incoming signal. A Star Destroyer, but an unknown ident."

"Hmm. This one might actually be one of ours, or at least one of our newly loyal supporters." And on this day of days, he might as well indulge himself. "Let's hear their piece."

The technicians carried out the order quickly, which meant that only a few seconds later, Pryde received an unpleasant shock.

A young man in a First Order captain's uniform – no, what had once been a captain's uniform but certainly wasn't now – appeared in front of Pryde. "This is Captain Arron Bayler of the Defiance."

"Bayler?" Pryde hissed, moving forward. He vaguely recognised the name – and then it hit him. The Vehement.

And all around the rogue Star Destroyer, a fleet leapt into space. A hateful jumble of shapes, just the kind of mongrel fleet that the Resistance would sail in – but a powerful one, there was no mistaking that.

The turncoat kept speaking. "In the name of the Resistance and on behalf of General Poe Dameron, we demand your surrender!"

Pryde wheeled around to glare at his officers. "Why are we not killing them already? Open fire!"

The Defiance dropped away and accelerated as the Resistance fleet broke to starboard and let fly. Other ships followed under cover of their comrades' broadsides, and Pryde realised with a lurch what they intended.

One of the comms officers cried, "General! We have ships taking heavy damage!"

"Never mind that! Get me a link our commanders on the surface, alert the Supreme Leader – and deploy all reserve fighter squadrons. The Resistance are attempting planetfall!"



The Falcon shot from the Defiance, flanked by Black, Blue, Violet and Silver Squadrons and tailed by gunships. The Resistance transports were pouring from hangars, racing for the shelter of the broken and burned-out Star Destroyers.

Dozens of wrecks turned slowly in the void above the burning surface of Gorothad, the casualties of Hux and Ren's feud. Rey found it an effort to keep her eyes forward, to not get lost in the insane, heartbreaking scope and savagery of it all.

"They've gone mad," Kaydel whispered, staring out at the sea of dead metal. No one disputed her words. They'd seen the reports and footage from the First Order's civil war, but to see it first-hand, in all its vastness, shook them all. Then they remembered who would be suffering most from all this – the ordinary people below – and steeled themselves. Nothing made the case against the tyrants, or reminded the Resistance of their duty, like this carnage.

This is what we're fighting too, Rey told herself. Just like Poe said.

She and Chewbacca carefully plotted their course, pushing the Falcon as hard as they could through the debris-filled space without leaving the other craft behind. The transport squadrons spread out, small formations weaving among the hulks.

"TIEs coming," Jess radioed. Rey's eyes flickered to the side and she saw them, a veritable swarm of craft coming from Ren's fleet, closing in on them. "Black and Blue, on my wing. We're gonna intercept – give Ren hell for us down there, guys!"

"Roger!" Rey called.

She glanced up to see Black One corkscrew overhead, ignite its booster and streak towards the enemy, guns already blazing. The rest of Black Squadron and Blue followed. Chewbacca roared up at the canopy, cheering the fighters on.

"Agreed," Rey breathed.

As the dogfights began to rage behind them, the Falcon, the transports and their remaining escorts shot clear of the wrecks and streaked down into the atmosphere.



The tide of slaughter carried Ren to the blast doors of the control room, carpeting the Palace's inner precincts with armoured corpses. He stepped over a red-liveried Stormtrooper, noting the many rents and holes in the armour. A nice bit of symbolism, Hux, but a pitiful waste. If only you'd managed to make them fight better.

Upon reaching the portal, he paused for a moment, drawing himself up. A single camera sat above the gate and he stared into it, knowing that beyond the door, Hux was staring back. After weeks of constant battle, there was just a metre of solid metal between them. Eyes still on the camera, Ren raised his saber. A grimly ironic salute.

There were heavy weapons squads at his disposal who could level that door with a sustained barrage. Some of his Stormtroopers had demolition charges which could get them in. But neither of those were personal enough for Ren right now. He rammed his saber into the door, straining to force it in deeper as an angry orange glow spread out from the point of entry.

Molten metal flaked away as he began to cut downwards, heaving on the blade. Trails of it ran across the dark plating. The heat was welling up from deeper in as the saber penetrated further. Ren felt the searing through his gauntlets, smelt his hair and beard beginning to singe.

On some primal level he detected fear in the chamber beyond, scenting it like the reek of cold sweat. His lips pulled back from his teeth.

The growl welled up from somewhere deep within his chest and as it built to a roar, he pulled the saber back. His fist slammed forward and the shockwave rippled out. The riven doors caved in with a shriek and crash, molten chunks torn free and hurled away. A scream somewhere beyond told Ren that at least one person on the other side hadn't got clear quickly enough.

He didn't even wait for the smoke to clear. He stormed into the opening, foreseeing and deflecting the few shots fired at him. He was dimly aware of the Stormtroopers in the room who were already trading fire with his own soldiers, and the officers behind them. But there was only one person in the room who mattered to him right now. There he was at last, staring back at Ren, eyes wide.

Hux went for his pistol, but Ren raised his hand and Force Lightning sprang from his fingertips. It blew the general off his feet and Hux shrieked as he was hurled backwards. He landed painfully on a console, glass breaking under him.

Stolan was next. He got a shot off, but Ren deflected it with a gesture and his saber took the Colonel across the throat. The Knights and Death Troopers surged past him, cutting down Hux's soldiers and knocking his officers to the ground. Ren moved on, not watching Stolan clutching at his throat, eyes wide, smoke seeping from between his fingers.

Hux's eyes were locked on his last ally as the big man slumped noiselessly to the ground. What little colour had ever been in his face was gone now.

Then Ren was on him. He seized the usurper by the throat and hoisted him into the air, putting his face right against Hux's. The words rasped out, staccato and bleeding hatred. "Long – live - the Supreme Leader?"

Hux, bleeding from the hairline, could only splutter and gasp. A perfect moment, the dream of which had sustained Ren all through the long march to here.

"You are going to die a traitor's death," he promised Hux. "I will drag you out onto the plaza and strike your head off for the whole Galaxy to see. This is the fate of anyone who dares stand against the Supreme Leader. And that is all you will ever be remembered for."

The heavy haft of Krobakh's axe rang against the floor. "Master!" the Knight grated, soundly oddly worried. Ren turned to look at him, and found the Knight pointing to the strategium's holo display. "Something is happening in orbit."

Ren let Hux drop, extinguishing his lightsaber as he approached the hologram. Miraculously it had survived the firefight, though its display crackled and flickered as Ren tried to parse what the images it showed. For a moment he felt only confusion, but then he understood the story it told him. An implausible story, impossible, he'd have liked to say. Except that it was unfolding before him.

He saw the ragged fleet which had come charging into the system – no, not ragged. The ships were varied, but they had a discipline which matched their fervour. He saw his armada losing ships, dozens of ships. And most of all, he saw the scores of transports now pelting down to the surface, aiming for the Palace.

He looked up through the dome, at the sky lit by what might be the first light of the coming dawn, but mostly by the fire of the great warships.

"This, Hux," he said quietly, contemplatively, "is what your treachery has brought us. Look at it." He pointed to the holo with his saber hilt, not caring to see if Hux's eyes actually followed the gesture. "You did this to us. Because of you, the Resistance have landed troops on Gorothad itself. What would old Snoke have made of that?"

"You dare speak that name?" Hux spat back from where he knelt, "The Resistance are here because you murdered our Supreme Leader and failed to destroy them." His finger stabbed at the holos, but the accusation was directed straight at Ren. "This is your work as much as it is mine!"

Ren let Hux have his little tantrum. His own anger had died down to a simmer which could almost be mistaken for tranquillity, as he gazed at the holos and absorbed their full import. This made things simple. The rump of the Resistance had brought itself to him, and he would destroy them. As always he was beset on all sides, but they no longer had a Jedi within their ranks. What was an enemy without the Force on their side?

"Supreme Leader," one of his captains dared to prompt him. "Your orders?"

Ren didn't return his gaze, instead watching Hux struggle back to his feet. "Secure the last precincts with what troops are needed for the task. Redeploy everything else to the outer limits. All units in the lower levels are to regroup and dig in to hold off the invaders."

The fingers of his sword hand flexed. Who leads them here? Dameron? The Traitor? No matter. He would find their leader and cut him apart, piece by piece. Nothing in this Galaxy was his equal, not any more.

His rage flared again. Ren lunged back towards Hux, smashing the hilt of his saber into the other man's nose. Hux flopped back onto the floor, clutching his face. Ren didn't spare him a glance. "Cuff them all and take them to the dungeons. The executions can wait."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 42: Planetfall​

The Falcon, at the head of the Resistance spearhead, plunged through turbulent air and clouds which were mostly smoke. Silver and Violet Squadrons hurtled down around them, scanners raking the smog.

"Nasties coming up," Kaydel said. Rey saw them, TIE Fighters and Interceptors streaking up to meet them. "Look alive, everyone."

"We're on them," came the clipped reply of Violet Leader. The fighters dispersed and assumed attack vectors, even as they abruptly dropped out of the clouds.

Gorothad's tormented surface sprawled before them, riddled with flames. The night sky was lit from horizon to horizon by fire. Smaller lights came into view – TIE Fighters, Silver and Violet Squadrons dispersing and racing ahead to meet them. The Falcon's own turrets kicked into life, but most of the enemy fighters were already cut off by their own. Those that get close did found Tannel and Ki'rii manning the cannons, and the guns of the H-Wings opening up thunderously too. They didn't last long.

Rey tilted the ship away from a fan of laser fire from an interceptor, setting Ki'rii up for a shot which took out the offender craft. "Have you and R2 found us a landing site, Kaydel?"

"Shunting it," Kaydel breathed, fingers racing over her data-slate. Rey glanced down at her console and saw it. A number of squares and open spaces were highlighted on the display, just a few clicks north and close to the Palace of Discipline. The rest of their strike force would be seeing them too.

"Violet Leader, are we clear to land?"

"All clear, Falcon."

"Then get yourselves back to the battle," Rey said. "May the Force be with you."

"And you too, Captain."

The transports pulled out of their sharp dives, Rey letting the Falcon plummet on a little further before doing the same, trusting to the old warhorse's durability. Below them, the towers fell away, leaving the Palace to dominate the vista. She saw the landing zone Kaydel had picked now, and the hunched mass of the Palace beyond.

"It's cluttered," she muttered. The scans were turning up a lot of debris. No Stormtroopers yet though – she'd take that. "Ah, what the hell, this is all a roll of the dice." She toggled the radio's setting to carry over to the rest of the strike force. "We're setting down!"

She sprang out of her seat the moment the ship touched down, the pounding of boots immediately sounding from back in the hull, thudding down the ramp. Their squads had already moved out, leaving only the Scrappers to form up around her, Chewie and Kaydel.

"Shall we, Captain?" LM asked.

Rey bared her teeth, knowing how feral the grin must look. "Try and keep up."



Finn was already out on the ferrocrete, pulling the squads into formation as they sprang from their transports. They came together with admirable speed, and he permitted himself a moment to take in his surroundings.

So did Jannah and Jaicyn. "Stars' end…" Jaicyn breathed.

None of them had ever seen the capital in person before. Obviously it had featured heavily in the propaganda reels they'd grown up with, but Gorothad had always been somewhere far off. That was all part of the conditioning, cultivating the sense that every Stormtrooper was just the smallest part of the machine, all turning to the distant will of the Supreme Leader. Now, though, Finn stood on the world and gazed up at the seat and symbol of the power which had claimed him and so many others...

And it was bigger even than they'd imagined. It recalled the Supremacy in its sheer, absurd mass, a grotesque statement of power and arrogance even in its brutalised state.

Jannah broke the silence. "It's funny, really. All those time we were told to imagine landing on Gorothad as conquering heroes, and look at us now."

"I don't know." Finn turned to her, smiling. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the steady kick of his heartbeat. "Conquering heroes is what I'm aiming for here."



The Falcon's complement ventured out into the firelit night, hearing shouted orders echoing back at them from the walls. Finn was pulling together the divisions. Further off they could hear more engines, seeking other places to land and surround Ren's position.

"Site secure, moving out!" Finn's voice came over the radio. Just as well. The Palace loomed over them here, seeming as huge as the mountains on Vatel, and Ren's forces would already be on their way down to the lower levels. They needed to move out fast, hit the enemy and force their way to the Palace. Everything rested on a knife-edge.

"Wait!" came a shout from the rear. "We've got incoming from behind us."

"I'm on it," Rey radioed. "Commander – Finn please, hold."

Ducking under the Falcon again, they made for the other end of the square. She could hear them now; the rumble of many feet and voices. It sounded confused, disordered, but then she wondered if that was just the effect of the fighting here.

The rearguard had taken up positions behind fences and other cover, guns trained on the oncoming crowd. Just thirty soldiers – they'd counted on any hostiles being up in the Palace. Rey slid in beside one of their sergeants and he turned to her.

"Captain, we won't be enough to halt them. What are we going to do?"

Rey struggled for the right words. They'd need to run, dispersing into the alleys and using the smaller spaces to fend off the enemy. If they let themselves be caught on both sides, that would be the end.

And they'd need a distraction. Her sword-hand clenched on her saber. "When I ignite it," she told the soldiers around her, "you withdraw." She met Kaydel's eyes, nodding gravely, trying to make her believe that she'd catch them up.

Then she stood, preparing herself to leap out from behind her shelter. They were close now, just visible amid the smoke and in the dim light. Hundreds, thousands even. They'd come so swiftly. She tensed, readying herself, feeling the warcry build in her chest. Now she would lunge out and-

"Wait!" Kaydel shouted, grabbing her arm. And then Rey saw it as well. She glanced back at Kaydel, nodding.

"Hold," she said, and moved out of cover, pushing down the nearest soldier's gun. The rest hesitated, and then lowered their weapons.

The newcomers weren't soldiers at all. They were civilians, bedraggled and begrimed, but they were all armed. And she saw the hope that burned in their eyes when they looked at her.

One stepped forward, a big Trandoshan. "We are the spark," he boomed up at them.

Rey extended her free hand, beckoning them. "Then what are you waiting for?"



Finn gave the order and his strike force moved out, the ground trembling under so many running feet. Up, up they went, finding the higher levels now strewn with wreckage and Stormtrooper bodies. Here and there, they also found deserters, raw-looking youths who'd hurled away their helmets and were making for whatever looked like safety. They pointed them to the landing sites, and more than a few of the civilians gained a blaster in thanks. Some of the deserters saw their counterparts in Phoenix Company, and fell in without a word.

They moved through alleys and streets, always heading higher, converging on another square. A flight of steps led up to a parade ground, and then the Great Ascension which one followed all the way to the plaza and the Palace. On triumph days, victorious generals and their troops would trek up those steps, to receive the recognition of the Supreme Leader.

The smoke was thicker here, billowing up to catch the light of the coming dawn. And Finn could hear shouts from above, and something else besides…

"Feel that?" came Rey's voice in his ear. She'd sensed it too.

"Ren and his Knights," he murmured back. "When the time comes, we take 'em together, right?"

"Right."

He turned his attention back to their advance. "The enemy will be on us soon," Jaicyn growled next to him.

Finn heard the tramping of boots. "Right on schedule." He spoke into his radio. "Captains, open fire when in range!"

Then the first rank of Stormtroopers appeared over the edge of the steps.

A voice sounded above them. "It's the traitor!"

Jaicyn glanced at Finn. "The traitor?"

"Looks like their maths is off," Jannah said wryly.

Finn smiled, but didn't answer. He simply raised his saber and shouted, "At them!"

Then he was running, gaining the ridge right as the Stormtroopers came into view. His first shot took a trooper in the chest, his second hit another in the shoulder and sent him spinning backwards. That put him among the enemy and suddenly they were within reach of the saber. Even hardened Stormtroopers recoiled for a moment as he struck out. Before they could gather themselves, the Phoenixes had come up on Finn's heels and slammed into them.

The company facing them went down, swept off their feet by sheer momentum. Blaster bolts snapped through the air towards Finn, but he intercepted them with his saber and sent a few straight back to the shooters. Riot troopers moved in with crackling batons. Jannah and Jaicyn advanced to Finn's side and together they met their attackers in a flurry of blows. The riot troopers fell. Another Stormtrooper company descended to meet them, but then Rey and the Scrappers sprinted up and suddenly the would-be attackers were beset themselves.

That set the pace and rhythm of their assault. They attacked like a raging sea, striking in overlapping waves. Even as one squad or company began to lose momentum, another surged up and their fury broke upon the enemy.

Finn waded into the midst of the enemy, and if his troops were checked, Rey would come tearing in, blades slicing and wheeling as the Scrappers followed in her wake.

The Stormtroopers' formations were broken apart, piece by piece and the soldiers scattered and thrown down. Bipedal walkers came marching down the steps, ready to sweep the attackers away. The H-Wings arose from the landing sites, cannons thundering, and smote the machines.

Again and again the battle cry rang out, reverberating through the air. "We are the spark!"

At some point in the attack, Finn saw a flash of gold light in the midst of the fighting, and Rey emerged from the scrum. She leapt atop a smashed scout walker, brandishing her saber above her head, and the cheer from below shook the air around her. Then she jumped down, landing amid a squad of Riot Troopers.

They never laid a single blow on her. She went through them like a cyclone, never pausing, never relenting. With the saberstaff, her fighting gained a newfound freedom and fluidity, weaving out of the way when an opponent swung for her and striking back too fast to be countered. A veritable dervish. It leant fresh strength to Finn's limbs, and he redoubled his own attacks.

Despite the danger, despite the chaos and violence, there was something glorious about this. Finally he could fight unfettered and purposefully, give free rein to the righteous anger he'd kept bottled up so long. Before long, the remaining Stormtroopers had been driven into a headlong retreat.

"Hold!" Finn called, and his officers took up the cry. The companies came to a halt, forming up again.

They were at the steps, the Palace and plaza right above them. Finn took stock, contacting the other strike forces. They'd all taken casualties during the ascent, but not too many. Other units were already mounting the first attacks on the plaza; Ren hadn't yet extricated himself from the bloodbath which must have unfolded inside the Palace, and they intended to keep him on the back foot. But the main push would go to Finn and his divisions.

Rey and her squad approached. He looked them over, exchanging fierce grins with the Scrappers. Kaydel's helmet looked like it'd taken a knock, but she was still on her feet and wearing a defiant expression. Chewbacca too was whole. And Rey… Rey's eyes were alight, energy crackling off her.

"We're not the Resistance anymore," Finn said, turning to face the troops and raising his voice to a shout. "Today, we're the reprisal!"

A defiant cheer answered him.

"Best not delay." Rey reached out to touch his shoulder. "We're sticking to the plan?"

"Yeah. I'll take the main force up the centre and get Ren's attention," he said. "Rey, you and the Scrappers cut around and flank them." They shared a long look. "Good luck."

"You too." Rey gathered up the Scrappers and off they went, followed by more troops.

Finn drew himself up, raised his saber in both hands. His company stepped into place beside him. "With me!" he shouted, and they began the run up the steps, towards the Palace.



Pain wracked Kylo Ren's body as he dragged himself through the Palace. His exertions and prolonged exposure to the mag-coils of his armour had built to an acidic burn in every muscle and ligament, and he had taken his share of blows during the fighting. Some part of his torso was bleeding; he could feel the warm wetness somewhere under his armour. The four Knights who remained on their feet were just as battered.

He was vaguely, dully aware of the devastation in the Palace interior, the scorched banners, the statues and façades which had crumbled under gunfire, the bodies which carpeted the floors. He could hear the sounds of fighting outside, announcing the Resistance's arrival in his domain, and everything else paled beside the slight.

"Is there no end to this?" he rasped, as he strode to the breach in the wall. Even Verix had the sense not to speak at that.

He gritted his teeth. The Supreme Leader was not defied. Pain did not hinder him. Agony, whether his or anyone else's, was sustenance to him. Whatever pain he felt would be dealt out a thousandfold to these irritants.

Through the cavernous ruin of the gates he marched, and into sunlight. The dawn was breaking across the Palace and the plaza, which heaved with wreckage and combatants. With all the smoke in the air the sun rose a bloody red, silhouetting the towers. Dead opposite, it shone through the gaps in the great carving of the First Order symbol. But that wasn't what drew Ren's gaze. Nor was it the battle already taking place, his forces arrayed behind the smashed vehicles and trading fire with the Resistance troops on either side. Even the company of Death Troopers who hunkered down amidst the wreckage, preparing to break from cover and engage them at close range, couldn't hold his focus.

No, that honour went to the infantry dead opposite him, marching up the Great Ascension and onto the plaza. They wore Stormtrooper armour – he could tell that from its shape – and for a second Ren thought they were reinforcements, come to crush the invaders. But then he realised their helmets were wrong, and that their armour wasn't the gleaming white it ought to be. It was… bare metal, with the phoenix emblem of the Resistance scorched onto it.

For a second or so, he tried to understand how this could be. And then one of the newcomers detached himself from the formation, and an indigo lightsaber came to life in his hand.

Clarity came to Ren in that instant. Of course. The one who'd caused him misery ever since Jakku. The one who Ren had gazed upon in the burning village and for whom he had felt that uneasy premonition. How hatefully true it had proven.

The traitor saw him, flourishing his blade as he fell into a combat stance. Either side of him, the shields locked. By then Ren was already running, the order to attack tearing from his throat as he rushed into the fray.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 43: A Duel of Fates​

"Charge!" Finn yelled, and around him Phoenix Company roared as they thundered into contact. They smashed into the ranks of black-clad Death Troopers, locking shield-to-shield, bludgeoning and stabbing. Covered by Jaicyn and Jannah on either side, Finn cut his way through the melee.

To either side another cry went up, as more rebels hit the 66th on their flanks and pushed them back into the midst of the wrecked walkers and tanks. From that point it was less a pitched battle than it was a brawl.

Finn led the push forward, cutting down Stormtroopers, Enforcers and Death Troopers alike, constantly warded by Jannah and Jaicyn's shields. He felt the presence of Kylo Ren and his remaining Knights, looming closer. And Rey, somewhere off to his left, fighting her own battle along with the Scrappers. Knowing she was there gave him strength, and he pressed on, shoulder against the tide, cut and thrust.

They pushed further in, the ranks of the enemy thinning before them. And there he was. It was only a fleeting glimpse, but Finn caught sight of Kylo Ren in the scrum, surrounded by his Knights and guards as he laid about him with his saber. Bellowing for his enemy to show himself.

"Two-One-Eight-Seven!" Finn heard the cry, heard Ren repeat it. He tightened his grip on the saber and advanced to face his enemy, trusting that Rey would be close. He could feel her somewhere in the melee, but the surging tide of emotion around him, and the baleful rage of the Knights, made clarity impossible.

In the event, one of the Knights reached him first – Ren's lieutenant. Yimur, wielding his broadsword two-handed in imitation of his master, barged his way through the melee to get to Finn. Finn saw him coming and paused, holding back so Jannah and Jaicyn pulled in close to him again. As one, they met Yimur's attack.



Rey leapt to face the other three Knights, a single blade lit and the Scrappers moving in her wake, lunging in unison.

She marked them each – Verix, wielding the hooked blades with which he had killed Nyzar, Krobakh with the heavy axe and Nazur with his long, curved sword. The Ren's fury emanated from them like a looming shadow, but the glare of her inner light met it and rent the darkness to shreds.

Verix was the first to reach her, swords whipping through the air and shrieking when they struck her saber. She saw Krobakh's axe sweeping up, ready to descend, and dodged to the left. Then she saw Nazur and swung for him.

Verix, suddenly exposed, took a bolt in the side from Chewbacca's bowcaster, staggering him. Next he was caught in the chest by LM's mace and smashed to the ground for Tannell to deliver the killing blow. Krobakh made to come after Rey, but Kuoma and Ki'rii cornered him, parrying his heavy blows and fencing him off from their leader, before Olesin moved in. Krobakh whirled, but too slow, and Olesin drove his spear through the axeman's chest.

Rey laid into Nazur. He was strong, and fast – but she was faster. Every time the Knight slashed at her, Rey deflected the sword. She bided her time, waiting for the opening and then flung her foot out. The attack drove her boot hard into his knee. Her next blow drove him back a step, as did the next. Rey didn't let up.

It ended quickly. She darted inside the Knight's reach, hooking the vibro-sword and forcing it down. With her enemy exposed she ignited her second blade and struck, slashing him from shoulder to hip.

With the edges of the wound still glowing, the Knight slumped to his knees and collapsed.



Yimur Ren reeled and howled at the deaths of his comrades, but not for a second did he relent. His and Finn's blades crashed against one another. Behind Yimur his master's voice sounded again above the fray: "Two-One-Eight-Seven!"

"I'll hand him your head," Yimur snarled, striking again. "And I'll have that saber too."

"Then come get it." Finn braced as Yimur sprang forward, but then Jannah and Jaicyn were there again, deflecting his strikes with their spears. Jannah stabbed forward. Her blade bit into his armour with a crackle and the Knight flinched. Finn saw his opening and pounced, driving his enemy into retreat.

His next blow beat Yimur's guard. Before the dark warrior could gather himself and block, Finn switched back. His saber took the Knight across the chest, cleaving through the armour and the ribcage beneath, and Yimur toppled backwards.

That left no one between Finn and Ren, and their eyes met. The sound of the fighting around Finn seemed to die away as the Supreme Leader took a pace forward. He'd seen Finn kill his last servant, and fury mingled with disbelief on his face.

"Traitor," he growled.

"How many times do I have to tell you people?" Finn stepped over the fallen Knight, now well ahead of Jannah's troops. He levelled his saber at Ren. "The name's Finn."

There was no time for him to go on the offensive. Ren simply bulled towards him, wheeling his saber in huge, sizzling arcs. Their impacts hammered against Finn's defence. A badly injured Ren had dominated him when they first fought on the Starkiller, and even though Finn was more skilful now, he still struggled against the Supreme Leader's speed and vigour.

"I broke the last Jedi," Ren rasped between swings. "And you… you're not even an apprentice. What chance do you think you have?"

Finn didn't waste a breath on answering. He hurled himself into his own attacks to compensate, employing the kind of heavy strokes he'd used with his shock-baton. The sabers clashed even more fiercely. That got him a bit of ground back, and he smashed his heel into his enemy's shin - for a moment he drove Ren into retreat.

Ren's back foot found a fallen Stormtrooper, enough to unsteady him for a moment. Finn lunged immediately, but Ren was too fast for him. He threw out his free hand and Finn's saber halted in midair, caught on an invisible shield.

He made to pull the blade back, but the inertia had caught his arms, becoming a vice on his muscles. He bared his teeth, hauling against it – and then he saw the cunning, cruel look on Ren's face.

"Your power's no match for mine, Finn." The Supreme Leader raised his saber, levelling it at Finn's chest. One quick stab would drive it through his heart, and he was powerless to halt it. "And now you'll die, just like her."

Despite everything, Finn found himself smiling at that. "Are you so sure she's dead?"

Ren tried to mask it, but Finn saw the flicker of uncertainty there. "What-"

He spun around, his hold on Finn breaking as Rey leapt into the fray. He barely caught her first strike, or the second. Even when he regained his balance, she pressed him hard, their blades splitting the air and snarling against one another.

In all the time Finn had fought with her, he'd never seen her move so quickly.

Ren eyes were on the yellow saber. "How-"

"Your uncle says hello." She jabbed at his throat. He caught the thrust, then stepped sideways as Finn rejoined the fight. Even now, Ren managed to block their attacks, striking back with renewed fury.

They broke apart. Unbidden, a gap had opened up in the melee. The fighting still raged around the three of them, but all their attention was on one another. Ren fell into a defensive posture as the two Jedi circled him, but for the moment his eyes were locked on Rey.

"This was my mother's work, wasn't it? So when the choice finally came, she chose you." He was silent again for a moment, but then he chuckled wryly. "Of course it had to be this way. It had to be the two of you at the end." He stood a little straighter, with a small shake of his head. "How long has it been since we first did this?"

"Long enough," Rey replied. She and Finn halted, either side of Ren. In that second, time seemed to stretch on, distorting under the weight of history itself. Finn caught the look that passed between the other two, tinged with a strange kind of sorrow.


In that second, time seemed to stretch out, distorting under the weight of history itself. The Force held its breath.


The Force held its breath.

Two years of struggle between them. Thirty years after the abuses of the Sith and the Empire should have ended. It all came down to this.

Ren gave them the ghost of a shrug, beckoning them. "Come on, then," he murmured. Then the calm façade cracked and that volcanic rage boiled up to the surface. "Come on!"

As the battle raged around them, they fought.



The line of First Order ships was bending back on itself, close to breaking under the weight of the Resistance's assault. The balance of numbers had been close, dangerously so, but the defenders already bore wounds from the prior battle. Their crews had been at work for days, weeks even. That exacted a toll of its own, and for all the First Order's technological might, that mattered at a time like this.

Poe watched Star Destroyers come apart under carefully coordinated broadsides and bomber runs, while others, badly mauled, retreated into the shadows of their fellows. Even the imposing Subjugator was beginning to flag under the bombardment, its shields weakening as it wallowed among thickets of laser-fire and gouts of plasma.

Just as importantly, their ground assets had all launched now, baring down on the First Order's fortress below.

"We're winning," one of the bridge officers breathed.

"Hold that thought," Poe chided him. "Green Squadron, hit that cruiser. Mongrel and Violet, cover their run!"

But he felt the elation that ran through the crew as well. The momentum was theirs, the enemy were ceding more and more space to them. Just a little more and they might even press them into retreat or surrender. They might actually win this-

Klaxons began to blare, cutting through all other noise. "New proximity alerts, to our rear!" Farrun called.

"No," Poe breathed. Then he yelled "Reorient the fleet! Pull away from the new signals, minimal exposure!"

Fresh squadrons of Star Destroyers came into view. These were the carrion-feeders, Poe knew, the deliberate stragglers who had waited for the clear winner to emerge from the struggle between Hux and Ren. But even if their captains were cowards, they would see that their arrival had tipped the balance firmly in favour of the First Order.

Now they came on, unbloodied and ready to kill, ready to prove their loyalty. Without preamble, they began their attack on the Resistance ships.

"Kriff," Poe cursed under his breath, but he couldn't afford to let morale flag now. So he raised his voice again. "We need to give our people on the surface their chance. Fight on!"



The three duellists whirled and clashed amid the smoke and fire, under the wrathful red glare of the rising sun.

Ren's strength and speed were still breathtaking, despite the damage he had taken. More than enough to push Finn and Rey to their limits. His saber snapped through the air to catch their blows, and when they managed to strike at once he used the Force to hold a saber at bay before lashing back at them.

But he couldn't block every attack. Rey wheeled around Ren, aiming a blow at his side. He jerked back with a grunt and kicked her roughly away, only for Finn to launch a fresh barrage of attacks which gave Rey the seconds she needed to close again.

This time she jumped onto a lump of wreckage and went for his head, and when he jerked aside she leapt down and came at him with her other blade. She stabbed at Ren's chest, and while he batted it away, it gave Finn an opening. Even as Ren stepped sideways, Finn slashed at his stomach. It cut through the armour and opened a shallow wound in the flesh beneath.

Ren gasped in pain, and Rey saw blood on his armour. They pressed him again, raining attacks down. Finn took a great overhead swing which Ren caught on his blade, recoiling a little before he pushed back. Rey seized her chance and darted in, but Ren threw up an invisible barrier to halt her saber. Both of them strained against his defence, but Ren moved first. With a snarl, he pivoted and slammed his elbow into Finn's chest hard enough to throw him backwards, his lightsaber tumbling from his hands. Rey staggered forwards, the resistance against her saber suddenly gone.

She saw Ren's blade rise to attack Finn and leapt forward to intercept. The sabers clashed, blazing even more fiercely than before. "It doesn't have to end this way, Ben," she hissed.

He almost managed to retort, but then he saw Finn regain his feet and lunge. Ren lurched back, deflecting Finn's saber before turning back to block a flurry from Rey. He wove around their attacks and responded with his own, jabbing at Rey's stomach and aiming a vicious slash at Finn's throat.

Already, they were feeling the strain of the fight. Their limbs ached with exertion. Sweat stung Rey's eyes. Each time they blocked one of Ren's attacks, the sheer impact jarred their arms.

But as much as it wore at them, it did the same to Ren. He couldn't land a meaningful blow with them supporting one another, and they dealt him more and more damage in return. Soon his armour was lacerated, and his cloak hung in tatters from his shoulders.

He should fall. He ought to be on the ground already. Rey couldn't guess how long he'd been fighting for, but she could see enough to know that he shouldn't be on his feet. And yet he just kept coming on, his endurance defying all sense. The red saber whipped out again, met her blade, dipped and flickered back. She and Finn blocked it as one, bracing and pushing back together.

Ren leaned heavily on the blade, breaths scraping through his teeth, but they threw him back and struck again. He parried Rey's saber one-handed, caught Finn's wrist in his other hand, visibly straining to hold them off. Rey could feel his anger and pain, so intense that it was like holding her face in front of a furnace. And under that, she could feel building pressure, Ren dredging up every last ounce of his power. Even the saber seemed to snarl even more viciously than before.

Something inside Ren snapped. Black fire ignited in his eyes, rippled out across his face, contorting it. He smashed a boot into Finn's shin, dropping him to the ferrocrete. With his next movement he shoved Rey back, clenching his now free hand.

Pressure suddenly built up in the air around them. They gathered themselves and sprang back, but too late. A roar broke from his lips. He opened his fist and lightning burst from his fingers.

For a split-second there was no sound. The next, a detonation of searing blue and white. It engulfed them, howled through them, became nerve-shredding pain. Rey and Finn were hurled backwards.

Finn thudded into the shell of a broken walker, slumping unconscious to the ground. Rey landed face-down on the stone, wheezing. Her vision swam, pain lingering in her eyes and teeth. The saber, she dully realised, had flown clear of her hands.

Clarity returned, and she felt Ren behind her. She twisted over, looking to get clear, but he slammed a boot down on her torso, driving the air from her lungs and pinning her. In vain she struggled, but she was powerless under the pressure. Without a word, he reversed the saber and stabbed down.

Throwing out a hand, Rey called her saber into her hand and batted the blade away. Ren recovered and swung for her neck – she caught the blow, but Ren put his weight behind the blades and forced them down, lowering himself so his knee pressed down on her chest. He inched one of the crosspiece blades towards her throat, so close that it seared her skin. Slowly, inexorably, it moved nearer.

"You can't win this!" he snarled down at her, the light of their weapons blazing in his eyes. "The rest of my ships are in orbit now. They'll crush your fleet and your rabble here. All you've achieved is to gather yourselves in one place, ready to be destroyed. You're outnumbered, Rey, outmatched and all alone."

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 44: To Make an End​

The Resistance fleet was hemmed in, caged against the fields of dead ships by the First Order ships.

"Hold!" Poe called. "Hold the line! Fight on!" Beside him, Farrun strode the deck, barking out targets and ordering damaged vessels to pull back. Every crew member worked on, faces set. The fighters and bombers outside still wheeled and flitted through the tumult.

But it couldn't change the facts. They were outnumbered and hemmed in as more and more First Order ships emerged into space. The Subjugator loomed above the Solo, its guns blazing away. Jess and Snap's squadrons had broken off their attack runs, forced to defend the Resistance ships against wave after wave of TIE craft.

Every minute seemed to see another Resistance vessel sundered, and more fighters shot to pieces. The enemy were losing ships too, but there were simply too many of them, able to weather the losses and expend their assets with hateful equanimity. The radio was a constant stream of bad news and hoarse, desperate voices.

"We've lost Green Leader!"

"Emancipator's taking heavy damage."

"Mongrel Squadron's gone, all gone!"

"Adamant Shield reports fires in the hull!"

"Grey Squadron is down three bombers-"

"Energy spike from the enemy flagship!"

Poe watched in horror as the three red spears leapt from the Subjugator, annihilating any fighters caught in their path, and struck the Aldera. The first rippled over the battleship's shields, the second burst them, and the third plunged into fractured armour and tore the vessel apart.

Poe flinched, throwing up a hand to shield his eyes against the blast. When he looked again, the battleship was nothing more than a cloud of vaporised metal.

Their formation was crippled. Around the lost Aldera, more Resistance ships were being carved open by volleys from the Star Destroyers. Before Poe's very eyes, an X-Wing was set upon by three TIE Daggers and blasted to atoms.

They'd been so close to winning. So close to righting the Galaxy, as the First Order tore itself apart. But all their hopes, and all the sacrifices, had been in vain.

"It can't end this way," he protested.

"General," Farrun said.

Poe barely heard him, raging at the injustice of it all. "This is not how it ends!"

Farrun grabbed his arm. "And it isn't!" He raised a hand. "Look, General."

He followed the admiral's pointing finger to a patch of space high above the Star Destroyers. Lights were flashing, clear white against the inky black. Incoming ships. The Rapscallion and its escorts… and more.

The holo lit up beside him. Rose and Maz stood there, beaming. "General, we've brought you the fire."



Down on the surface, still trying to fend off Ren's attack, Rey felt a stirring in the Force. She looked beyond her opponent, and among the fading stars, she saw a flicker of lights. Shooting stars? Debris?

No, she realised. Those lights were ships emerging from hyperspace – scores of them. And they couldn't be the enemy's. Not even the First Order could boast that many ships.

She looked back at Ren, feeling strength return to her limbs. "We're not alone."

For a second, Ren stared down at her, searching her eyes for some hint of meaning. Then he looked to the skies, a look of unmistakable horror fixing itself upon his features. "No," he rasped.

The next moment, he roared with pain as Finn's blade burst from his stomach. Rey saw her friend behind Ren, trying to cut upwards with the lightsaber. Blood was seeping from under his hairline, but he was on his feet, heaving on the blade. Only Ren's armour was keeping him from being carved open.

But however great the agony Ren felt, his rage was greater. He crunched an elbow into Finn's chest before reaching down to take his hand in a crushing vice-grip. Finn's grasp weakened, and Ren found the saber's power stud and extinguished it. For a second he lurched, no longer impaled on the blade.

Then he lunged forward, lashed back at Rey, uncaring of the hole in his torso. She rose to one knee, deflected his attack and countered, driving him back as she regained her feet. Finn too rallied, and together they set upon him again.



A great, motley fleet poured into the void around Gorothad. The variety was bewildering – everything from destroyers to cruisers, and hundreds of small craft filling the space between them.

"Rose," Poe breathed, giddy with elation. "You little wonder."

The newcomers wasted no time, streaking down to assail the First Order. Mandolorian hunter-ships knifed through the void at their head, and the rest followed behind them. One slab-sided hauler hailed the Solo, and the familiar growling of Hret Guular sounded. "He did say he wouldn't forget," C-3PO said. Even the old droid sounded giddy.

"True enough," was all Poe could manage. He felt dazed, light-headed. "True enough." Then he gathered himself, signalling Farrun to open a channel to the new arrivals. "Welcome friends, and thank you. Now, for the Republic, for our freedom-" His finger stabbed forward. "Attack!"

Rose's ragtag armada descended on the First Order ships, fighters and bombs diving to bathe their hulls in fire and scatter the TIE craft which had been harrying Poe's squadrons. The fighters rebounded with a vengeance.

"General," came Jess's voice. "Permission to join the attack?"

"Go get 'em, Black Leader. Target the Subjugator!" Poe snapped himself out of his momentary daze, reeling off orders again as he and Farrun worked to give some semblance of discipline to their miraculous counterattack. The squadrons moved in, fighters shielding the heavy bombers while the Y-Wings ran ahead, all converging on Ren's flagship.

The First Order fleet was already in disarray, its formation coming apart as Star Destroyers pulled away from the battle. Shouts went up from the bridge crew.

"They're running," D'Acy said in disbelief.

"Better than that," Lando grinned, his holo snapping into being next to them. "We've got ships striking their flags. There are Star Destroyers trying to surrender!"



"They're trying what?" Pryde hissed. Beyond the viewports, the Subjugator's hull was awash with explosions as Y-Wings unleashed their cargo. They stripped away the surface cannons and cracked the ship's outer layers of armour. Further back, the heavy bombers were beginning their own attack runs.

It should have been impossible for them to get this far. The ships around the Subjugator should be firing into the mass of craft and leaving nothing but atoms. For that matter, there should be ships around the Subjugator, guarding it.

The trouble was that suddenly, there weren't. The enemy reinforcements had hit and destroyed several ships already. But worse, others had become inactive or even broken formation, seemingly trying to escape the battle.

Pryde took this all in as Griss repeated his report. Even the admiral was frantic now. "Three, now four Star Destroyers have deactivated their weapons, sir!"

"Impossible." First Order troops did not surrender. Imperial troops did not go to their knees and beg for mercy. They had fought right up until Jakku, and after that defeat, they'd settled in for the long crawl back to power.

Pryde had endured the shame of exile for years, waiting for the day that the Empire's successors would have their vengeance and vindication. The day that the Galaxy supplicated itself before them, placed under the boot once again. There would be the brave and the foolhardy resisting them, but they would be destroyed and serve only to demonstrate that submission was the only way.

That was how things worked. Just as Stormtroopers did not defy orders and officers did not intrigue against their legitimate masters, Star Destroyers did not strike their flags just because they were confronted with a mass of puny little ships.

Griss tried to explain. "General, we've had messages from the ships to confirm it. From the comms signals, at least two of them have fallen to mutinies by Stormtroopers."

As the sun lit the surface of Gorothad below, it dawned upon Pryde that something had gone terribly wrong within the First Order. Perhaps something defective from the Empire which they hadn't managed to purge, or maybe it was a flaw that had wormed its way into their midst over the decades. But now he was watching the regime, and the cause to which he had dedicated his life, unravel.

Something inside him snapped. "Cowards!" he screamed, spittle flying from his lips. "Turncoat scum! Fire, fire on those gutless bastards!" He glared at the Resistance ships beyond, seeing the Solo now rising above his vessel. "Recharge the autocannons! We take Dameron with us-"

"Sir, there's no time!" One of the lieutenants protested. "We can't stop those bombers! We need to strike our flag!"

Pryde rounded on him. "We do not relent while a single rebel lives!"

He turned back to face the oncoming enemy, ready to issue another oath, but he was out of time. The bombs fell, fire blossomed through the armoured plates of the Subjugator – and the great ship came undone.



For a moment, above the Palace, the flagship's death outshone the rising sun. Ren reacted as if he had been physically struck, baring his teeth at the ships that now hemmed the skies. There were more Resistance landers descending.

"See what you've done?" Finn asked. "Everything you did, everything you took from us… in the end, it all it ever did was unite the Galaxy against you. The First Order is finished."

"Never!" Ren howled, and attacked again. He went straight for Finn, saber crashing against his and then Rey's as she took a hand. After another rapid exchange, she locked her blade against his, heaving to push it down. Ren pushed back, but Finn darted in past his guard and opened a deep gash along his thigh.

Ren turned with another bellow of pain, his shoulder cannoning into Rey's chest, before stabbing at Finn too quickly for him to dodge. Finn veered away, but he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. Ren caught him with the Force and hurled him back. Finn slammed down on the broken stone. But in his fury, Ren had exposed himself. Rey leapt with a yell, and brought her blade slashing down his left arm.

Ren's head snapped back and he roared at the sky. He wheeled away, but the damage was done. His left arm hung limp at his side, useless, and his posture was hunched from his injuries. There was blood all over his armour, which had been hacked and blasted into a mockery of its onetime solidity. He looked almost as battered as the Palace behind him.

Ren snarled and groaned at his ruined arm, trying in vain to move it, but the torn muscles wouldn't obey. He was unsteady on his feet now. It was astonishing that he could even stand after all this.

"Ben!" Rey cried out, lowering her saberstaff. "It's over!" Finn tried to get up, struggling – only for someone to grab him under the arms and pull him up. He looked around him, finding Kaydel and Chewbacca.

The fighting had stilled; the battle was decided. All around him were the Resistance, while the last living First Order troops were on their knees, disarmed. Rey advanced on Ren. They stood alone at the centre of the battle, one battered but whole while the other seemed ready to come apart at the seams. The Supreme Leader, would-be ruler of the Galaxy, was at the mercy of those he had oppressed for so long.



And there was something else that Finn couldn't see, but Rey and Ren both could. Two glowing blue figures among the Resistance fighters, watching sorrowfully. Luke and Leia.

There wasn't any judgement in their eyes, and there didn't need to be. Because in that moment, Kylo Ren saw it all. His invincible legions broken, slain or surrendered. His last allies slain, the deaths of his Knights leaving a hollow void in him. Everything hurt.

He saw civilians among the ranks of the victorious rebels. They stared in bewilderment at the lone, ravaged figure of their oppressor.

That was the bitterest realisation of all. Ren had pictured his death many times; he had imagined falling in battle, dragged down and torn apart as he slashed and spat defiance at his killers. But not this... not standing alone, crippled, and seeing pity in the eyes of his foes.

And he could just spy, at the very edge of his sight, the face of his father. Etched with grief, just as it had been in his last moments.

That was when the dam broke. Regret coursed through him, worse than all the pain he felt. Everywhere Ren looked, there was someone who had been hunted or oppressed in his name. And all it had got him was this, the First Order shattered. Every act, every atrocity, for naught. The follies of the past, recreated.

Which just left one thing to do. End this.



Rey was still, like everyone else, watching her opponent and the spirits of Luke and Leia. Ren held their gaze for a few seconds, then looked back to her. "So this is it." He looked like a condemned man – and in truth, he was.

She felt the emotions that churned in him as he limped towards her. Pain, anger… but most of all shame, and sorrow. Every terrible deed he'd committed in the name of staying alive, staying on top, had led only to his own ruin.

She saw the intent in his eyes, saw his fingers tightening again on his lightsaber. And despite what she'd said to Luke, she found she didn't want to do this. She'd imagined him wrathful and defiant to the last. To see him broken like in this way was altogether different.

"Ben…" Rey whispered. After all she'd been through at his hands, she still found herself protesting. "Don't do this. This doesn't have to be the way-"

"But it does, Rey." He shook his head. She knew that he could feel the grief building in her, but still, he wouldn't lay down his sword. His voice was full of regret, but it remained firm. "This can only end one way. I know what must be done, but I know I haven't the strength to do it. I can't yield."

She held back, even as he came within reach. Trying to wait him out, though she knew that he was too stubborn to just fall down and let them take him prisoner. Trying to give him the chance to back down, knowing he wouldn't take it.

In that moment, staring into one another's eyes, they shared a moment of purest understanding, just as they had on the Supremacy.

With his one good arm, Ren raised his saber in a final salute. "I understand what this will do to you, but you can finish this. You're stronger than me." A small, sad smile crossed his face. "You always were."

And though the tears were running down her face, Rey lifted her saber in response.

He took a great swing, and then another, but he was too weakened now, too slow. She caught the first blow, batted the second aside, smashed his blade down and then with a wrenching, wordless cry, she rammed her own saber home.

It plunged into his chest, up to the hilt.

So fierce was the pain she felt from him, that for a moment Rey thought she'd taken a blade through her own heart.

She raised her eyes to Ren's face, expecting to see agony contorting it. Instead, his expression was serene, eyes distant, despite the trembling which ran through him. The red glow which had lit his face died as his saber fell from his hand, and Rey extinguished her own.

He sank to his knees, and she found herself trying to support him, easing him down. Acting on instinct, as he slumped back onto the rockcrete she reached for his saber, laying it on his chest. He placed his hand over it.

His eyes met hers, focusing one last time. "Thank you," he breathed. Then his eyes closed and his head tipped back. In that final moment, the sorrow, turmoil and pain seemed to fall away from him at last. The next thing she knew, he was gone. The last of their link went hollow and cold. Unseen by anyone but her, Luke and Leia bowed their heads and faded away.

There was no sound, except for the crackling of the last fires on the plaza.

Rey crumpled. She shut her eyes, shaking, feeling the sobs well up noiselessly from her chest, and let the tears come. All around her was deafening silence, except for a sorrowful rumble from Chewbacca.

She didn't know how long she stayed there, racked by her grief. But finally, she heard the whine of retros as transport craft descended to the plaza. Then she felt something – a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Finn. And Kaydel, who took her other shoulder and squeezed. With their held Rey got to her feet, turning to spy Chewbacca, Poe and Rose approaching, and the Scrappers close behind.

She met Poe's eyes, mustered the barest hint of a smile and nodded. Then she slumped into Kaydel's embrace, and the others piled in, throwing their arms around one another.

She felt the love which radiated off them all, and for a brief time they all forgot everything else.

Eventually Poe stepped away, followed by the others, leaving just Kaydel and Rey as the Scrappers moved in to hug them in turn. Looking over Kaydel's shoulder, Rey saw Finn and Rose embrace, a little apart from the group. Then movement caught her eye, and she watched Poe step towards the assembled rebels. He lifted his blaster, and the answering cheer shook the plaza.

It wrung a gasp out of Rey which was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Kaydel pulled back a little, gazing into her eyes. "You did it, Rey."

Rey put her arm around Kaydel's waist, turning her to look out over the plaza. The red tinge to the sunlight was falling away as the sun climbed, and now a golden glow suffused the air. "We did it."

She spotted Jaicyn and Jannah with their ragged company, Finn walking over to embrace them both. All of them were battered, and Jaicyn was sporting a bloody nose and black eye, but when Jannah punched the air and shouted "Freedom!" they took it up without hesitation.

They repeated it once, with more joining in, then twice – this time it seemed like the whole rebel army took it up. Rey threw her head back and yelled it to the sky, thrusting up with her saber while Kaydel too joined in the cheer.

And somehow that moment made all the struggle, all the pain, worth it.

When she looked back at the square, she saw Poe standing alone amid it all, looking reflective and quietly proud. He looked to them and smiled. Then BB-8 came rolling up, and they all went to greet the little droid.

 

[bluntblade]

Chapter 45: As the Dust Settles​

Cheering and laughter were unusual sounds for Gorothad. To Hux, they might as well have been nails down a blackboard. The Palace rang with a cacophony of celebration, polluting the silence of the great halls.

They'd come for him some time after the sounds of fighting had subsided. The prison guards had yielded with disgusting speed when the Resistance broke down the doors and told them their Supreme Leader was no longer among the living.

There were a few rebels held under Gorothad, along with political prisoners of other kinds. Almost all of them had been set free. Hux, however, had remained locked away until a hulking Kaleesh warrior hauled his cell door open. He hadn't done anything about Hux's restraints, and dragged him from the cell without a word.

There were still fallen Stormtroopers all over the Palace. Hux's reptilian handler was obliged to step over and around them as he led him through the corridors and hallways. There was a steady stream of Stormtroopers and First Order officers in restraints, being herded in the opposite direction. The First Order had been beaten into submission in the very heart of its domain. Hux's chance to sit on the throne would never come. It all added up to a gnawing, hollow feeling in his chest.

A more visceral horror was waiting outside in the morning light. As he was marched down the steps by the Kaleesh, there was a flash and rumble from atop one of the towers. The great stone carving of the First Order's symbol had been blown up – not just blown up, vaporised.

Hux stared in shock, a feeling which only deepened as everyone around him hollered, clapped and punched the air.

"Ah," growled the Kaleesh, following it with a ruk-ruk laugh. "Prettiest firework I've ever seen. Come on now Hux." He dragged Hux onward. "Best we get you to the Commander, I think."

This was what it had all come to. Ren and Pryde dead, but Hux could hardly take credit for that. The First Order fallen. Rebels and civilian trash dancing – dancing! – in sight of the Palace of Discipline. Everything Hux had ever worked for, torn down and mocked. He let his head sag, staring glumly at the ground as he was led forward. He couldn't imagine anything fouler than this.

And yet something even worse was waiting for him. Because when the Kaleesh finally dragged him to his superior officer, Hux raised his eyes to find...

"No," he protested. Then: "You?"

"Funny," Finn replied. "Ren said something similar. So he didn't finish you off, huh?"

Hux found his lips were moving, protesting against the wrongness, the unfairness of it all, but somehow he couldn't make a sound. Worst of all, when his victorious enemy saw it, his expression was not of scorn, but pity. Pity for the man who had ordered the destruction of the Hosnian System! Was this truly what Armitage Hux had been reduced to?

The traitor turned to the Kaleesh. "Appreciate the thought, Olesin, and believe me I'm tempted. But it's probably best we stick him back in the cells. The general here has a lot to answer for, and the whole Galaxy to answer to. We'll want to keep him cooped up until then."

The Kaleesh glanced at Hux. "I'd prefer to settle it like we do on Kalee, but by your word, Commander."

"Good call." Then Finn turned back to Hux. "You might want to wash while you're inside, Armitage. Best you look good for your trial." And with a light pat on the cheek, just where Hux had once struck his own face, he dismissed the onetime general.



Poe had his feet up when Finn and Rose entered the strategium, a cheerful gesture of disrespect to the defeated enemy. A few other officers milled around the chamber, repurposing the holo displays to show the wider city as well as communicate with the commanders up in orbit, like Farrun. The admiral appeared as a hologram.

"It's all a bit messy up here," Farrun admitted, favouring the newcomers with a quick salute. "We've still trying to do a headcount of everyone trying to surrender. How's it on the ground, General?"

"Big old clean-up down here, too." Poe spotted them and waved them over. "Pull up a chair, guys!"

Rose took a seat. Finn hopped up to sit on the table itself, which prompted an amused smile from Poe. One of the junior officers, after a brief hesitation, pulled out a camera and took a quick shot. That would be an iconic image within a few weeks of the battle.

Poe leaned forward. "So Hux is still alive?"

"Uh huh."

"Not that he deserves to be," Rose pointed out.

"True, but this way he gets to be condemned by the whole Galaxy."

"Not gonna be much of a trial," Finn said. "Exhibit A was broadcast all over when they did Hosnia."

"It'll still be satisfying. Same as sitting here." One of Poe's boots thumped a little on the table, making the holos flicker briefly. "You know, guys, I think Leia would be proud of us."

"Han and Luke too," Finn returned. "Even if Han would be kicking our asses and telling us to make ourselves useful."

Poe laughed, getting up. "And so we should. I'm gonna get over to the Inquisition's fortress and see what we can salvage. How about you?"

"We'll head into the city. Rey's got our people here working smoothly, so I'll take Phoenix Company and go lead the clean-up somewhere else." Finn looked up at the dome above them, somehow still intact after all that had happened to the Palace. He felt elated, a sensation of freedom the like of which he couldn't recall feeling before.

They'd come to the heart of the First Order's power, and they'd blown it wide open in the name of the Galaxy. He almost wished Phasma was here to see it.

Poe had more immediate concerns, and pointed to the dressing on Finn's shoulder. "You good to lift with that?"

In truth, Finn's body was a mess of aches and his wound from Ren still throbbed a little, but he shrugged it off. "I'll try, and if I can't, I can still direct others. We're in this to help people, no?" Poe nodded. Rose had never looked prouder. They stood to leave, but something made Finn pause at the threshold and turn back to Poe. "Wait. You said the Inquisition fortress. What are you after there?"

"Well, intel to get the planet running again," Poe said, "but they've also got archives on the whole Stormtrooper program, details on every single conscript. Including the worlds and families they were taken from. I want to give all of that back."

The surge of emotion that Finn felt almost rocked him back on his heels. "You'd do that?"

"No question, pal. If not for you, and everyone else who renounced the First Order, we'd never have made it here. Don't imagine that I'd ever forget that."

Finn grinned broadly. He just had one thing to add before he left. "You're right, you know. Leia would be very proud."



There was, it transpired, still lots to be done after the battle. The first thing on the list was undoing the damage which the First Order's brief civil war had inflicted, clearing the lower city levels of debris and rescuing people who'd been trapped in the chaos. Rey, Chewie, Kaydel had left Finn, Rose and Poe to deal with matters in the Palace and headed down to help out with the relief and repair efforts.

Kaydel moved through the throng, handing out medpacks, food and drink to those in need while Rey and the Scrappers leant their efforts to clearing away the wreckage and rubble. It was hard going but, aided by soldiers and civilians, they were making good progress. There were even Stormtrooper conscripts who'd deserted during the battle, and were now helping out with the relief work.

"I'm going to need another massage when this is over," Rey told Kaydel when she caught her for a brief gulp of water. "seems a Jedi's work is never quite done."

"They're still cheering when they see us," LM commented, somehow managing to sound amused as he lugged away another piece of scrap. "Never been applauded for just lifting things before."

"Is that a good change?" Ki'rii asked, handing out ration packs to the cluster of children which had gathered around her.

LM reflected for a moment. "Yes, I like it. Just hope Nyzar and Cylarei can see us now." Rey caught his eyes and nodded, clapping him lightly on the shoulder.

It was while they took a break, sat on the remains of a TIE Fighter, that Rey caught a little girl looking at her. More specifically, looking at the saberstaff which jutted slightly over her shoulder. Rey followed the child's eyes to it, then back to the girl. She seemed ready to shrink away until Rey smiled at her. That was enough to coax her forward, and Rey crouched down to greet her.

"Hello."

"Hello," was all the awestruck girl could manage at first. "You're… you're the Jedi."

Rey nodded, but held up a finger to correct her. "I'm one of the Jedi. There are two of us now, and we're going to find more."

"But you're the Jedi, the one who beat Kylo Ren."

Rey felt sorrow at that, but she didn't let it show. "Yes. But I don't think I caught your name, Miss…"

"Teika," the girl beamed. "Teika Beratan. What's yours?"

"Rey." She saw the question forming in the girl's mind, and smiled softly. "Just Rey – or rather I was. Now I'm Rey of the Resistance, and Rey of the Jedi. Now, Teika, is that your mother over there? Yes? I think she'd like you back."

Once she was confident that Teika was rejoining her mother, she turned back and found Kaydel before her.

"Now you're wearing the name right," Kaydel said.

"Thanks. Still," she added, putting her arms loosely around Kaydel's shoulders and resting her forehead against hers. "Though I do feel like Rey Connix might have a nice ring to it."

"Hey, all in good time," Kaydel replied, hugging her back. But she couldn't hide her happiness even if she'd wanted to, and bobbed up on her toes to kiss Rey. "I love you, scavenger."



Several hours later, she entered the throne room alone. Well, not entirely alone – a blue glow appeared in one corner by the gate and became Luke.

"The conquering knight. How's victory treating you, Rey?"

"I'm ready to lie down," she said. "I'm ready to lie down and not get up again for a very, very long time."

The heavy bombing which had presaged Kylo Ren's attack had even damaged this place. There was a hole in the high ceiling, letting light spill into the throne room and dispelling the gloom which had suffused it before. Nor had the throne itself been spared. A great chunk of the ceiling had come loose and dropped right down on it. The high-backed, carven seat had been obliterated, smashed into fragments of black marble. The largest were as big as Rey's foot. The remains of stone plinths also lay around her, any objects they had supported all crushed or shattered.

The sum effect was almost farcical, she thought. After all they'd been through to get here, the First Order's own infighting had taken care of the throne.

"Pity," she remarked. "Finn was looking forward to smashing it up." It was only a symbol when all was said and done, but these things mattered.

"We never really get everything we want," Luke responded. "What matters is, there's no longer anyone on the throne." He must have seen her face fall, however slight the change in expression was. "It hurt to end it, didn't it?"

She nodded. "Yes. But Ben Solo's finally at peace, isn't he Master?"

Sorrow tinted Luke's expression a little at that. "There's a lot for his spirit to reckon with, but he repented in the end. That alone counts for a lot."

"It's still…" she felt her throat tighten before she carried on, "wrenching, to see the Skywalkers and Solos end like this."

"I know." Luke bowed his head a little. "But it's only the end from one perspective. From where I'm standing, the Skywalker and Solo legacies are alive and well in you and your friends. The compassion, the will to do what's right, just that dash of recklessness…"

Rey laughed a little at that, and she felt a surge of pride and happiness in her heart that beat out the sorrow.

Luke returned her smile. "The same goes for the Jedi. A thousand generations live in you now – and in Finn."

Rey inclined her head a little. "I'm very aware of that. And on that note…"

There was a wry, knowing look in his eye. "You don't mean to stay here long, do you Rey?"

"We've got two Jedi now," she replied, "but I only call that a start. Finn and I need to begin building in earnest – or at least we should start figuring out how. I mean," she added, "neither of us are close to being masters yet. We've still got plenty to learn."

"That never changes for anyone, Jedi or not." Luke winked. He was already slipping gradually out of sight. "The trick is to not forget that, even when you're a master. That, and remembering that the Force is with you all. Be seeing you, Rey."

 

[bluntblade]

Epilogue​

Weeks passed in a blur. The First Order's collapse had been sudden, its abrupt show of weakness meeting with immediate retribution from the people it had oppressed. That then triggered its own flurry of events as people across the Galaxy suddenly found the yoke lifted off their shoulders. The process of putting a new government in place, where Kylo Ren's regime had been, was going to run for months and probably years.

Most of Rey's time consisted of aiding in the relief efforts, both on Gorothad and the other Throne Worlds. Ren and Hux's civil war, brief though it had been, had done immense harm across the heartlands of the First Order. There were injuries to be tended to, hungry people to be fed and shattered infrastructure and homes to be rebuilt.

Quite aside from helping people who'd been caught up in the carnage, the Resistance and their allies had their hands full with salvaging their own ships and the enemy's war machines alike. The forces of the reborn Republic looked like they were going to be even more of a hodgepodge than the Resistance's for years to come.

And while all this went on, the representatives of ten thousand systems had begun to thrash out the matter of just how the Galaxy would be restored to democracy. The old argument over a permanent Senate and seat of government was brewing again. At least it was only that, however – an argument – and everyone had the memory of the First Order to spur them to work together.

Rey knew she'd have to learn about these matters eventually, when the new Jedi Order finally took form. But for now they simply made her head spin, so she left that business to Poe, Lando and the other leaders of the Resistance.

After all, the Resistance had some matters of their own to attend to. They'd lost a great many people in the fighting on and over Gorothad. That meant names to record, memorial services to hold, families to contact and console. And just as importantly, an urge to take stock of and be grateful for the friends who'd come through alive. Rey found herself reminded of that every time she looked at her companions. It was an unfamiliar state, but for the first time Rey felt truly free; free from the spectre of starvation which had dogged her on Jakku and the looming threat of the First Order.

When she had time to spare, she often wandered the Palace with Kaydel or Finn and Rose. The structure was changing under the mass of scaffolding, like everything else on Gorothad. That much was rather inevitable after what Ren and Hux had done to the place between them. No one was entirely sure what was going to be done with the sprawling building, but its menacing aspect was clearly on the way out. Plenty of Resistance ships still hung in orbit, standing guard over the planet.

Statues and other solemn monuments had been raised with surprising speed to fallen heroes of the Resistance. Luke, Han and Leia stood among them. Rey looked upon the faces which had been so faithfully captured by the sculptors, and an involuntary smile broke out on her face. No matter that the Skywalker line had ended, the things that they and Solos had stood for were alive and well today.

Not that that end went unmourned. Amidst all the bustle, Rey had found time to carry out the last rites for Ben Solo, with Finn and Chewbacca's help. It had been a small, private funeral, building a pyre in a courtyard and setting it to burn. A strange way to bid farewell to the man who had been her greatest enemy, and so many other more complicated things besides. But it felt right to Rey; one more piece of the past she could at last lay to rest.

The saber went to the flames with its wielder, but she hung onto the Kyber crystal it had contained. In due time she would heal it, restoring it from its corrupted state. Eventually, that crystal would be handed on to a new Jedi, an apprentice of Rey's own. Somehow, that seemed fitting to her.



A few weeks after the Battle of Gorothad found the Millennium Falcon sat on a landing platform, stocked and fuelled for a long voyage. Rey, Finn, Kaydel, Rose and Chewbacca were venturing back out into the Galaxy.

As to just which course they were setting, Rey wasn't sure, though Rose had suggested Canto Bight as an early stop. After that, it all depended on where their search led them – and how long it took the people trawling the First Order's archives to find Finn's homeworld. A huge research program was now underway, looking to reunite families ripped apart by the old regime.

In the meantime, though, Rey and her friends had their own mission. They would go looking for potential Jedi to join them in founding the new Order, and somewhere to build it.

Where exactly they'd do that was also an open question – except for no desert planets, a veto Rey had called from the start. Maybe Ach-To, if the Caretakers were willing to put up with Rey a second time. There might be an opening, she thought, if they went and helped patch up the crumbling old temple, then left the Caretakers in peace for a few years. It might be a while before Rey and Finn started teaching anyone properly.

On the other hand, perhaps they'd stake out some new territory. She smiled at the thought. Nothing was set yet, and that was just fine by her. She was free at last to chart her own path; reforging the Jedi into a new form because she thought it was the right thing to do. And just as she'd dreamed of aloud to Kaydel, she was free to set a course to a planet purely because she or one of the others wanted to go there. All with her friends and the woman she loved at her side.

They had a little collection of ships assembled; Jannah and some of her old division had decided to come with them. The rest were staying with Poe, under Arron's leadership. The captain – now commander in recognition of his deeds – had finally acquired a replacement hand, along with a new uniform in Republic colours. "Worth the wait," he told them.

A crowd had gathered to see them depart, though they kept back from the landing platform. Which was to be expected. Their coming departure had been common knowledge for a few days, and people went out of their way to get a glimpse of the heroes of the Resistance.

Rey turned to Poe. "Are you sure we can't drag you away with us?"

"You probably could, but I'm still needed here for a while," Poe smiled. "Someone's gotta be seen to keep order while the politicians figure everything out."

"Just so," C-3PO put in. "For the time being, our irregular little army are the closest the Republic has to a standing military."

"True," added Poe. "But, Force willing, things will be sorted out before long and I'll be coming after you soon. I reckon Arron will be good to stand in for me." He knelt down to fuss over BB-8. "So it won't be too long, eh buddy? I know, they'll be good to you while you're away." He looked up at Rey. "Take care of him, right?"

She beamed. "Always, General."

"I think," he replied as he straightened up, "that all things considered, 'Poe' is alright." He put his hands on her and Finn's shoulders, casting a fond look around the group. "Look after each other, try not to do anything I wouldn't approve of, and if you do, make sure you come back with a good story. But most of all, enjoy your adventures."

"I wholeheartedly concur," said Threepio.

As one, they enfolded Poe and the startled protocol droid in an unwieldy embrace, before finally breaking away with a few murmured goodbyes and boarding the Falcon, waving cheerily at the crowd.

Rey sank into the pilot's seat, tapping a finger fondly against one of the dice while Chewbacca fiddled with the controls.

They rose off the ground, the other craft launching with them, and turned so they could see Poe and the others on the platform below.

BB-8 wobbled next to Rey's feet, chittering.

"Yes, he's waving," she laughed. "And I'm waving for you, don't worry." Her hand moved to the accelerator. "Now hang on, we've got a long road ahead."

The Falcon tilted skyward and streaked into the outer atmosphere, the deep blue giving way to an open starfield. Kaydel leaned forward to put a hand on Rey's shoulder, grinning when Rey turned and smiled back at her.

Finn and Rose, squeezed into their shared seat, smiled too.

Then Rey turned back to the view ahead. Space stretched out before her, beckoning her on. Adventure and belonging, it all lay ahead.

She punched the hyperdrive, watching the stars distort, stretching off into infinity – and they were away.